


Lost In Paradise

by ygrainette



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anna has ulterior motives, F/F, Femslash, Gen, Jo is a hunter, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2017-12-25 08:07:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/950727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ygrainette/pseuds/ygrainette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's late 2008, Jo's working in a bar in Denver, hunting on her nights off, staying under the radar. But the apocalypse is coming and an angel is about to change her life forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> written because Jo is superb, and Anna has so much wasted potential as a character, and I love them both. and I also love femslash. ahem.  
> beta'd by the wonderful [at-heart-a-gentleman](http://archiveofourown.org/users/atheartagentleman/pseuds/atheartagentleman).  
> I love feedback with the passion of a thousand fiery suns.

Most nights, working at the Black Cat is just boring. After growing up in the Roadhouse, where the patrons would roll in toting sawn-off shotguns and head wounds, just as likely to make a game of knife-throwing as of darts or pool, and her mom broke up fights at rifle-point about once a week ... Well, what passes for trouble here, a few drunken leers here or there and the occasional pathetic attempt at fisticuffs, barely even registers with Jo.

The Black Cat is just a bog-standard bar in Denver, a bit up-market for her tastes. She wouldn't even set foot in here, but she needs the money, and she needs a base of operations while she's hunting. Her mom's back in Omaha, managing some diner and keeping her ear close to the ground, but that's never been Jo's way. Ellen may be content to hear the stories, get wind of the rumours, pull it all together and pass the intel along, but Jo is Bill Harvelle's daughter. She can't just stand by, can't just gather the news clippings and hand them over, she needs to get her hands dirty.

And so, here she is, wiping tables and mixing drinks and making nice with drunk college boys. It's been a long day already – car broke down, row with her landlord over the salt on the floor in her flat – she's still got four hours left on her shift, it's a slow night, and she's about to die of boredom. Right now she'd love a pair of hunters swinging machetes at each other, liven the place right up.

She's leaning on the bar, zoning out and wishing for just a _little_ excitement, when the girl appears.

No warning, no footsteps, no creak as the front door opens – suddenly she's just _there_ , sliding into a barstool opposite Jo, who promptly has a heart attack.

The girl, smiling slightly, probably amused by Jo jumping a foot in the air, says, "I didn't mean to frighten you."

"Oh, I'm sorry – I didn't see you – can I get you a drink?" She says, inwardly cursing herself. No way should that girl have been able to sneak up on her like that. Alright, it's a quiet Thursday night, no hints of anything supernatural in the neighbourhood, she's got a hip flask of holy water and a silver-plated switchblade on her, but even so. She's still a hunter, and when you're hunting you live and die by how well you keep your guard up.

She can all but hear her mom's exasperated voice. _Joanna Beth, you listen to me –_

"A glass of red wine, please."

There's something in the way the girl is looking at her, pale eyes unblinking and intense, that makes Jo a bit uneasy as she turns away to fix the drink. It's a little like the stare of some drunk asshole who's about to hit on her far too determinedly, a little like the way a predator, be it hawk or demon or vampire, watches its prey.

But when she hands over the glass and the girl smiles and thanks her, handing over a crisp five dollar bill, all that creepy intensity vanishes. She's just a pretty girl, all red hair and delicate bones, with a shy smile that draws out Jo's in response.

 _Paranoid, you're just paranoid._ Leaning on the bar, she asks, "So, do you live roundabouts, or just dropping by?"

"You might call it a flying visit." The girl chuckles quietly into her glass at some private joke, then sets it down, idly running a finger around the rim. She flicks a glance over her shoulder, as if to check she won't be overheard, and turns back to Jo. "I'm right in thinking you're Jo Harvelle?"

Jo pushes down the urge to bolt upright, grab this stranger by the throat and shake her. It's tempting, so tempting, but not exactly staying under the radar, which is what she's trying to accomplish with the whole damn boring day job. "Where did you hear that name?" Hopefully there's enough steel in that question to convey the message of _don't fuck with me, I'll slice and dice you if you push me._

The girl takes a sip of her wine, unconcerned, and gives her another soft smile. "I'm Anna, don't be afraid, Jo –"

" _Where did you hear that name_?" Jo hisses. Her hand finds the flask of holy water, sets to work on the cap. As far as everyone in this town is concerned, she's Elizabeth Singer. Randomer shows up calling her Jo? Looks like she was damn right to be paranoid after all.

Anna's weird fixed gaze is back, but her voice is gentle, calm, as she says, "I'm a friend of the Winchester brothers."

That makes Jo pause, but only for a second. Knowing those boys, odds are she's talking to some monster that they pissed off by wasting one of its mates. Or, come to that, a hunter they pissed off by just being the Winchesters. "Oh yeah?"

"They, ah –" Anna ducks her head for a moment. When she looks up again, she's smiling ruefully. "They saved my life a little while back."

Well, at least that suggests Jo hasn't gotten caught up in some vendetta-type situation. "They're damn good hunters," she says, trying for something neutral. Doesn't really come easy when she's thinking of those boys – too many painful emotions all twisted up inside one another. She's still not sure if they're friends, or if the whole possessed-Sam fiasco cut them all too deep.

"I hear you're a good hunter too, Jo," Anna says.

All of a sudden the calm unwavering scrutiny of those sharp eyes is a little too much. Jo straightens up, feels herself blush. "I try." She knows what's what, she's decent with a gun and better with a knife, but she grew up around hunters, has seen too many of the real veterans at work to think she's really _good_. She's getting there, hell yeah, and she's no amateur, but a girl's gotta know her limits. And speaking of knowing what's what –

"Here." She holds out her flask of holy water toward Anna. "Wouldn't be a good hunter if I didn't ask."

"Holy water? Go ahead."

Jo pours it into Anna's wine, and it's her turn to watch, hawk-like, as the other girl drinks deep, lets out a tiny gasp of satisfaction, puts the glass down, and tilts her head in a challenge. "Satisfied?"

Well, not _entirely_ , she's positive there's something – well, something going on here. Something not quite normal-everyday-human is going on under the surface of this conversation. She can't put her finger on what, exactly, but her gut's telling her Anna isn't dangerous, at least not to her, and Jo's learnt by now to run with what her gut tells her.

"Yeah, yeah, I guess," she says, and puts the hip flask away, settles back into leaning on the bar, if not at ease then at least relaxed. "So, er, what brings you out here, Anna?"

She's not a hundred percent sure what she's expecting, but she's relieved when Anna starts talking about the spate of disappearances in the area, which Jo's been keeping track of anyway, because this is about a _job_. Jo can handle a job. You know where you are with a job. Figure out what kind of monster's on the menu this time, find it, get any civilians out, kill it, get rid of the evidence, patch yourself up, easy peasy. Damn sight neater than – fuck knows, getting dragged into helping the Winchesters out of some scrape or other.

"I'm up to date on the missing kids," she tells Anna, casting a quick glance around to check they're still safe to be swapping notes on local crime sprees stroke monster activity. This is another downside of working in a normal bar – at the Roadhouse, no one batted an eyelid if you made a habit of obsessively following news of bizarre murders or loudly discussing demonic possession. "Can't work out what's behind it, though, it's like they all just vanished into thin air. Damn thing's covering its tracks like nobody's business – don't you hate it when things get _clever_?"

For a moment, Anna hesitates, then says slowly, "I wouldn't know. I'm not a hunter."

Jo blinks. "What? I thought –"

"It's a long story." Anna leans forwards, holding Jo's gaze, so intent Jo feels like she's trying to read her mind, to stare right through into her soul. Her voice is low, urgent. "But I can tell you what is taking the children – it's a demon, and it's planning to use them for a ritual, a sacrifice –"

"How do you _know_ this?"

"-on the night of the new moon, in five days' time. I don't know where it's hiding, or where the children are, but I can give you its name. Marax. You need to kill it, or at least stop the sacrifice from going ahead." She stands up, touches Jo's hand briefly, and turns to walk out.

"Wait – Anna, _wait!"_ Jo doesn't even pause to think, simply vaults over the bar, runs after Anna. She catches up with her just outside the bar, grabs her by the arm. "Hold on a minute, lady, you can't just walk in and throw something like that at me with no explanation –"

Anna tilts her head, and for some reason Jo can't fathom, all of a sudden she looks sad, disappointed. "Do you refuse? To stop the demon?"

"No, of course not, I just –" she breaks off, turns away, running her hands through her hair in frustration. "I didn't say that, of course I'm gonna – but you gotta tell me what's going on. You're not a hunter, but you know all this shit about _this specific_ demon and _this specific_ ritual, when I can't make head nor tail of it – I mean, what the hell? What is going on? If you know what demon it is, it makes way more sense for us to work together on this, right?"

"I can't stay." Anna takes hold of her shoulders, her cold hands gripping Jo with far more strength than she would have guessed the other girl could muster. Those deep hazel eyes are roving all over Jo's face now, restless, and her voice has gone from insistent but calm to almost _pleading._ "I have to go – don't ask me to explain, but I'm in danger and I have to go. There are five days before the new moon, Jo, you can find a way to stop it, you _must_ do this, or the consequences –"

"I said I'm taking the damn job!" Hell, what does this girl think Jo's gonna _do_ , just sit around twiddling her thumbs while she knows a demon's running around snatching kids for some kind of fucked-up evil ritual? "But just – how do you know this? Anna? Who even _are_ you?"

Seems like that was the million dollar question. Anna looks away sharply, closes her eyes, sighs. And suddenly Jo can barely breathe for the tension coiling in her stomach because, oh God, here it comes. Whatever Anna says, she's pretty sure she's not gonna like it, when has anyone turning up out of the blue being all secretive about a hunt ever worked out well?

She's about to turn away and head back into the Black Cat, when Anna's voice cuts through the taut silence, quiet but clear as a ringing bell. "Jo. I know about this because angels told me."

Well, Jo sure as hell wasn't expecting _that_. For a moment she's actually speechless – _angels_? And here she was, thinking nothing could phase her – she grew up knowing it's holy water for demons and salt and iron for spirits, silver for shape-shifters, werewolves eat the heart, hex bags mean witches – but angels? Angels are just a myth – but there is ironclad conviction in Anna's steady eyes, in her voice, in the set of her mouth. Absolute belief. This girl is serious, which means she's either insane or a really, really good liar. Or else Jo's going to have to re-think her whole world-view.

"There's no such thing as angels," she says through numb lips.

Anna reaches out, cups Jo's face in her hands, fingers stroking her cheeks gently. She's staring again, unblinking, unflinching. Coupled with the touch, it's too much, too weird, too intimate, but like a deer caught in the headlights of the onrushing truck, she can't look away.

"Jo, please. You're going to have to trust me."

The soft hands fall away, and Anna is walking away into the dark night.

She's rounded the corner before Jo comes back to herself, swears, shakes her head, and runs after her. She turns the corner onto the main road, but Anna has vanished without a trace.

" _Damn_."

* * *

"So you're telling me angels are _real_? You believe this?"

"Look, I know it sounds crazy, but the things I've seen? Ain't no other explanation." Bobby's putting on a good show of being a crotchety and cynical seen-it-all-and-killed-it-all-too old man, but beneath the griping and the sarcasm, Jo can tell he's about as weirded out as she is about the whole angel business. Maybe a little less so, since he's had a bit longer to get used to it, but not by much.

When Bobby Singer is weirded out, you know you're _really_ far down the rabbit hole.

Jo takes another big gulp of coffee. It's three thirty AM, she just finished her shift down at the Black Cat, but as gritty as her eyes are, as much as her feet are pounding, she can't even _think_ of going to bed yet. Not when she's got abducted children to investigate, a seriously wily demon to track down, a hell of a deadline on it all, not to mention, oh yeah, adjusting her worldview to accommodate angels. Hell, wonder what it's like to have a quiet life.

She absently doodles a feather on the notepad in front of her, clears her throat. "Okay, so what can you tell me about angels, then?"

Bobby sucks in his breath through his teeth. "Well, I gotta be honest with you, kid, I don't know a lot. They're secretive bastards, seems like, but powerful. I mean _really_ powerful. We're talking stronger than pretty much any demon I've ever known."

"God _damn_ ," Jo says, and whistles. Wait, isn't that probably some kind of blasphemy? Well, angels or no angels, she's not been struck down by lightning so far, so damned if she's gonna start tiptoeing round all pious now.

"Yeah, you're telling me," Bobby says, sounding as impressed by the supernatural as she's ever heard him. Maybe even more so than when he was telling her about that Hell's Gate opening up a year or so back.

Someday, when she's got less urgent things on her mind, and preferably when she can see his face, she's _got_ to hear the story of how Bobby was introduced to angels. From the sounds of it, it was a kicker.

But right now she's got business to take care of. "So, this chick that showed up here talking about angels, name of Anna, said Sam and Dean helped her. Saved her life, actually. This ringing any bells?"

Short pause. Jo traces over where she's written _Anna_ on the notepad. Then Bobby says, "Yeah, come to think of it, the boys did have some escapade with a girl named Anna Milton, not long ago. Poor thing could hear angels, got caught in the crossfire between them and the demons."

"So you think she's legit?"

"Now I ain't promising anything, but it does seem that way. And what're your instincts saying? You gotta trust your instincts in a job like this, Jo."

"I know." She sighs, looks at the notepad, the sketched feathers, the two names she wrote down as soon as she got home from the bar. _Anna. Marax._ "I think she's for real, Bobby," she says, then bites her lip. _Hell, say what you really think. In for a penny, in for a pound._ "Can't say why, but I trust her."

"Alrighty then. There anything else, or that all you woke me up for?"

Jo can practically _see_ Bobby doing that attempt at a frown he does, when he's trying not to smile, not to let on how much of a soft touch he is under it all. Probably works better on folks who _didn't_ grow up with him giving them lollipops and letting them play with his dogs when they visited with their dad. And yeah, he did also give Jo her first full-on machete, and he yells and snarks at her when she visits these days, but it'll take more than that to fool her. Specially since he always takes her calls, even when it's stupid o'clock in the morning.

"Well, I'm trying to hunt down a demon, been covering its tracks like a pro, but I've got a name – wondering if you've got any ideas, a ritual or such?"

"Right ..." On the other end, there's the unmistakeable sound of a beer being cracked open. Jo grins, and settles back in her chair. Good old Bobby, never failed her yet.

As he starts to run through her options, she traces over Anna's name.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jo sets to work tracking down the demon her mysterious informant told her about, and why is she dreaming about Anna?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was un-beta'd, so all mistakes are my own.  
> Once again, I adore feedback. Enjoy.

The next three days, Jo barely sleeps.

Bobby comes up trumps with a spell that lets her narrow down the demon's location to a road on the outskirts of Denver. For about an hour she thinks she's got the job in the bag, until she drives out ( _her patched-up car sounding like it might break down again at any second_ ) to discover that the street is nothing but warehouses, some empty, all pretty sizeable. If you wanted to stash a half-dozen missing kids out here, you'd be spoiled for choice.

Scanning for EMF gets her nothing, no obvious sulphur either – not that she was expecting anything different. This is one hell of a crafty demon, it's not gonna slip up near its hiding place. Nothing for it but the tried and tested hunter method: pull out a fake badge and go have a poke around. Then come back under cover of darkness and have a bit more of a poke around.

She spends a whole day talking bemused site managers into letting her wander around their premises, finds nothing, heads down to the Black Cat for her Friday night shift, drinks about a gallon of black coffee, grabs a sawed-off and a salt canister, spends another four hours breaking into the abandoned warehouses. When the sun starts dragging itself up over the horizon, she admits defeat and drives back to her flat.

Looks like either Marax has hidden the children someplace she just didn't know was there or didn't manage to get a look at, or else it's using some kind of magic to conceal itself. Judging by the fact it managed to snatch six kids without leaving any trace at all, she's guessing it's got some serious mojo up its sleeve. Probably has about twenty different concealment spells on wherever it's hiding out.

Major research time.

Jo is starting to feel seriously out of her depth.

Demons are sort of her speciality, hunting-wise, or so she'd thought. After spending the next day knocking back espressos and caffeine pills as she scours every grimoire and demonological book she has, to no avail, she's starting to re-think that. Starting to think maybe it's just that the black-eyed fuckers are everywhere these days, and she's ended up tangling with them more often than ghosts or monsters, because she has got nothing on how this goddamn thing is hiding from her. Not a fucking clue.

When she finishes looking through the last grimoire, Jo realises she's spent thirty-six hours getting nowhere, she's only got three more days before those six poor kids get slaughtered, and if they die it'll be her own fault, and on top of that her next shift at the bar starts in three hours. Before she knows what's happening, she's in tears over her desk.

She cries for maybe ten minutes – really awful, racking, full-body crying that scrapes her throat raw and makes her stomach churn – then lays her forehead on the desk, breathes deeply, and calls Bobby again. Part of her is screaming not to, that it's admitting defeat, come on, she's supposed to be a _real_ hunter now, can't she even sort out one wretched demon without running back for help like a stupid little girl who can't save herself? And oh fuck, she wishes she didn't have to, but there are lives at stake here, and Bobby knows more about hunting than anyone else in the States, and she's just so _tired._

The surly, long-suffering, "What _now_?" she gets when Bobby picks up almost makes her start crying again with relief. Might be stupid, but as long as Bobby's about, rolling his eyes and perpetually infuriated by everyone and everything, she knows it'll all be okay.

She gives him the short version – went where the spell sent her, had a look in all the buildings, couldn't find a thing, looked through all her books, couldn't find a thing, deadline's coming, what the actual fuck. Pretending her voice isn't shaking, that she's perfectly stable and coping absolutely fine, yes sir, just checking in for a second opinion.

"First things first," Bobby says, in his best pissed-off-kindergarten-teacher tone, "go eat something and for Christ's sake get some sleep, you moron."

To Jo's eternal embarrassment she does a kind of burst-into-tears-laugh-hysterically combination.

"I'll look through my stuff for you. Books you've got ain't scratching the surface. Sounds like it's big-time crap you've got yourself into this time."

"Tell me about it." She's managed to get herself more or less back under control, enough to sound reasonably normal as she says, "Thank you, Bobby. Seriously. Just, thank you."

He does one of his I'm-pretending-not-to-give-a-shit grunts. "Go sleep. And don't do anything stupid, y'hear me?"

"I'll try," she says, and smiles at his exasperated sigh as she hangs up.

Theoretically, she should probably have some food – she had a big bowl of cereal when she got home this morning, which was ... hours ago, damn, pulling all-nighters is such a mind-fuck – but her eyes are puffy and aching, and her limbs are so heavy, and now Bobby's told her to, all she wants to do is sleep. Even sticking a frozen pizza in the oven feels like too much right now. It's as much as she can do to drag herself over to her bed, set an alarm on her phone and crawl under the covers.

Three hours isn't enough, she'd sleep for three weeks if she could, but right now it sounds like heaven.

Jo's out as her head hits the pillow.

* * *

She dreams she's back home, sitting on the swing seat out behind the Roadhouse, watching the sun set in red and gold over the desolate beauty of the Nebraska plains. She spent so long chafing at the bit sitting here, dreaming of road trips and roaming hunters, wishing she was somewhere else, far away – some big city or beautiful sea-shore or wild mountain range. All those painful teenage years, waiting to get away from home, and now the Roadhouse has burned down and there's a lump in her throat at the sight of it, even in a dream.

Guess you only know just how much you love something when you lose it.

She kicks her legs so she swings, just gently – and then she hears quiet footfalls behind her. Doesn't look around because she knows, the way you know things in dreams, that whoever it is will come sit beside her on the old swing seat.

The chain creaks and there's warmth at her side, another arm pressed against hers. Now she looks, and it's Anna, Anna with her hair lit up by the sunset, a halo of fire.

"Hey," Jo says, and leans her head on Anna's shoulder, because it just seems _right_. Sitting next to a mysterious redhead on a swing seat, watching the sun go down, the Roadhouse at their backs and the endless plains at their feet ... this is a good dream.

"Where are we?" Anna asks. Her hair is soft under Jo's cheek, her shoulder is bony even through her jacket. She smells sweet and heavy, like the scent of rain fresh on the earth, and that's weird, because Jo doesn't normally smell things in dreams. Then again, she doesn't normally have freaky customers wander into her dreams either, so she figures she'll roll with it.

"The Roadhouse. It's a bar for hunters. My mom ran it for, like, twenty-five years. It was our home." She sighs, listens to the noise coming from behind them: faint strains of classic rock on the jukebox, raucous laughter and drunken shouting. Suddenly she misses it all so bad she could cry. All of it – even cleaning up after the fights, and the impossible-to-banish smell of stale beer, and patching up hunters who dragged themselves through the door only to collapse from blood loss. Fuck.

Gently, Anna says, " _Was_?"

Jo swallows hard, tries to sound blasé. "It got burned down by demons, 'bout two years ago now. Lost a lot of good people, and all."

And she hadn't been there. Ash died, near two dozen other hunters along with him, all folks she knew, some she'd known all her life. Her friends died, her mother only escaped by a fluke, their home burned to the ground, and she'd been halfway across the country. Goddamn it, won't that ever stop hurting?

A moment's pause, then Anna lays her hand, feather-light and hesitant, on Jo's tight-clenched fist. "I'm so sorry," she says, and for once that platitude, which Jo's heard over and over like a broken record, ever since her dad died, rings true.

There's depth behind it, that's the thing. Anna sounds old and worn-down, worn out with how much she means it. And so Jo uncurls her fist, lets her hand relax under Anna's soft touch, and tells her, "It's okay. Not your fault."

They sit quietly for a while, Jo couldn't begin to guess how long, just breathing in Anna's rainstorm smell, listening to the chaotic murmur of the Roadhouse, watching the sky darken. It could go on forever. She thinks if it did, she wouldn't mind.

Then Anna says, "You're scared you won't be able to stop Marax," and even though she sounds totally calm and non-judgy about it, that yanks Jo right out of her trance.

She pulls her hand away, sitting up and twisting round to face the other girl, heat rising fast in her cheeks. "I'm not _scared_ ," she snaps.

Anna doesn't rise to it, just smiles ever-so-slightly, and says, "That's good, Jo, because you can. You _will._ "

Even though a moment ago she was protesting that she wasn't scared, no sir, not at all, that makes Jo snort. Because for all this weirdo chick comes along with some crazy to-do list from angels, then shows up in her dreams acting like she can read Jo's mind and also see the future – she doesn't actually know shit about Jo. If she did, she'd see that she's _drowning_ over here. She got thrown in at the deep end, sink or swim, and she's not exactly doing the freaking backstroke.

She doesn't say all this, just shakes her head and tells Anna, "You are so talking out your ass right now."

"Jo." Suddenly Anna is standing up, looming over her. Her hazel eyes are bright with that fierce conviction she had when she spoke of angels. The same bone-deep certainty runs through her voice as she smiles, lays a cold hand on Jo's bare arm, and says simply, "I believe in you."

Jo's about to protest again – _you've met me like once, also this is imaginary, I don't need a pep talk from my subconscious –_ when the sound of the alarm on her phone shatters the dream and drags her back to reality, gritty-eyed and groaning.

* * *

Working at the Black Cat on two and a half hours of sleep in two days, with her mind swimming with demons and missing children and angels and cryptic redheads, is a pretty fucking surreal experience. Even for Jo, who's seen and done some weird shit in her time. She has ingested arguably too much caffeine, and her hands are shaking as she pours shots and wipes out glasses, and everything is a little too bright and loud and interesting, like someone went crazy with the world's saturation controls. Everyone's looking at her a bit weird, she's talking fast and twitching, but really, come on, cut a girl some slack.

Pretty much every time anyone orders a drink she has to get them to repeat it, and she keeps reaching for the Jack Daniels no matter what they ask for, because she's always been a Jack-and-coke fan, and focusing on what anyone's actually saying is far too hard right now. After the couple of days she's had, it just seems to float on past her, because who the fuck cares about these idiots and their overly-specific booze orders? There's a fucking high-calibre demon in town and angels are real, and it is just unspeakably bizarre that everyone else is just getting on with normal life. Why aren't there people running screaming down the streets? Where's the mass hysteria and the _end-is-nigh_ preachers and the panic buying of rock salt?

Oh yeah, she forgot, everyone else is utterly oblivious to all that good-vs-evil monster-hunting bullshit. Whoops.

It's a bit like being back in grade school, screams she couldn't let out searing her throat, listening to Miss Clarke go on and on and on about fractions and verbs and geography and knowing it was all useless. Knowing there were _things_ out there, things that killed her Dad, things that meant her Mom kept a gun under the bed and salt near the doors, and teachers always told you about stranger danger and not to play with matches and look both ways when you cross the road, but none of that could keep you safe from all those _things._

So Jo's got like three days to go before innocent kids get murdered on her watch, and one hell of a powerful demon ( _pun very much intended, all the Harvelles know that at times like this, you either laugh or you cry_ ) to tackle, but she's gotta eat and she's gotta make her rent, so it's stupid college kids and their stupid drinks for the next few hours. And then bed because otherwise she might actually lose it and go postal.

After a while, the too-caffeinated buzz starts to fade, and the clink and shine of the bottles, the cold glass in her hands, the words whizzing past, it all becomes kinda hypnotic. She's moving on autopilot, almost sleepwalking. The maddening, circling-the-drain whirl of her ( _angels demon hunting_ ) thoughts slows right down. The jittery adrenaline wave she's been riding since Anna walked in two nights ago, that's peaked and just left her worn out and blanked out.

It's maybe one-thirty in the morning, near the end of her shift, when she heads down to the basement to bring up another case of Heineken. Tired as she is, she trips and only hunt-trained reflexes stop her pitching headfirst down the stairs. A fresh spike of adrenalin cuts through the fog, snapping her all the way back to alert clarity, aware of the rail in her hand, the brick wall she leans on, looking down the stairway at the shadowed crates of new bottles, thinks, _Christ, that was close. Could've broken my neck and died down there, now that would be fucking embarrassing._

Then it hits her, a lightning flash of a realisation in the voice of her mother's exasperated scolding:

 _Joanna Beth Harvelle, you didn't check_ under _the fucking buildings._

* * *

That thought carries Jo through the remainder of her shift, lifting her, granting her enough of an _oh-hell-yeah-I'm-on-this_ rush to make it without passing out or killing anyone, to somehow drive herself home safely, and stagger up to her flat and into bed. For about ten seconds she considers changing into pyjamas and possibly showering, then she falls asleep face-down, fully-clothed, with the lights on, which pretty much settles it.

No weird dreams this time.

She wakes up, squints at her bedside clock and has to get hold of her phone to check whether it's one in the afternoon, or if she was so tired she slept right through into the next morning. Turns out it's the afternoon, thank god, because between sleeping and working and poring over useless grimoires, she's wasted enough time as it is.

Praise the lord, there's a pizza in the freezer, and since it's actually the afternoon it seems totally legit to have that for breakfast. Cooking was always Ellen's strong suit, not Jo's.

A shower, a change of clothes, and a double pepperoni pizza and half a carton of orange juice later, she's feeling borderline human. It still feels like there's sand under her red-rimmed eyelids, her shoulders still cramping up with tension, but compared to yesterday, she's a million dollars. Ready to hunt herself a demon, in fact.

Bobby, bless him, has emailed her a primer in demonic concealment-wardings, bullet-pointed and all, with sketches of the sigils used and all. He's also ranked them in terms of the power needed to make them work, ranging from _pushover_ to _if you see this DO NOT FUCK WITH ANYTHING UNTIL I'M THERE_. That gets printed out and stuck in the notebook she uses as her journal, aping the leather-bound, smudged and stained record of her dad's hunts, the book she read over and over obsessively as a kid, that she keeps with her even now.

So she's got a load of sigils to look out for, and the impatient part of her aches to just haul ass back down to those goddamn warehouses and see if she can spot any. After all those hours spent at her desk yesterday getting nowhere, actually _doing_ something seems so inviting. But it's a stupid idea and she knows that, like looking for a needle in a haystack, and maybe she's cracked some jobs by just charging in and thinking later, but she's also gotten burnt enough times to know there's a time and a place for being sensible, too.

A few of the buildings have floor-plans or blueprints that are publically accessible online. As for the others ... well. Jo's not a genius like Ash ( _then again, she's not a lunatic like Ash either_ ), but in the three years he was based at the Roadhouse, he taught her a lot. Some of it, in among the drinking games and Pink Floyd trivia, was even useful. It takes her a good few hours, when he probably could have done it in twenty minutes, but by hook or by crook she gets herself the rest of the blueprints.

A quick perusal tells her three of the warehouses have basements or underground levels. Two of them are still in use, and she had been shown the basement when she'd inspected one of them. The third is abandoned, and although the blueprint clearly shows a set of stairs leading down to the basement, she'd seen no sign of them when she broke in two nights ago.

Fingers tingling, she starts loading up on rock salt and holy water.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jo faces down the demon she's been hunting, and learns there's more to Anna than meets the eye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This weekend I am moving and starting graduate school, so it may take me a little while to produce the next chapter. I do know where I'm going and have some momentum with writing this, though, so hopefully it won't be too long.
> 
> Enjoy!

No matter how many times you've snuck around empty buildings in the dead of night, it's still creepy as hell. Jo loves her job, wouldn't change it for the world, and she's never scared easy, but she'd be a liar if she said her heart wasn't in her mouth, palms weren't slick, as she creeps in the fire escape and makes her way through the abandoned warehouse.

The place is so dusty she sends up little clouds with each footfall, and there are cobwebs clinging to all the corners, empty metal shelves looming like skeletons, throwing out streaking shadows in the light of her torch. It's absolutely silent, and as hard as she tries to keep the noise down, her breathing sounds impossibly loud, her old Doc Martens thundering out a summons for anything that might be listening.

Torch in her left hand, salt-loaded shotgun in her right, she creeps through the shadows. Hard not to feel like _she's_ the one being hunted here, that the demon Marax is watching her even now, waiting for the moment to strike. She wishes fervently that she wasn't alone, had a partner, be it Bobby or Rufus or even Mom, someone to watch her too-exposed back, another pair of eyes in the dark.

_Come on, come on, get it together. You've dealt with demons before, hunted alone, you'll be fine. You can do this._

It's always been the worst part of the gig, in her opinion – the anticipation. Once you're actually face-to-face with something, caught up in the red haze of the fight, lost in the aim-and-fire, punch-and-duck physicality of it, that's not so bad. Fun, even, in some crazy adrenaline-high way. But when you've worked out what it is you're up against, and you're heading out to rattle the cage of something that would literally eat you for breakfast, waiting for the ambush to come – well, that's different. That's as far from fun as you can get.

She wonders if she'll ever lose the sense of dread that settles cold and heavy in her stomach when she steps into the lions' den. Probably not. When your day job is basically picking fights with monsters, you need _something_ to tell you when you've crossed the line from recklessness into stupidity.

Like her dad once told her, sometimes fear is what keeps you alive.

She's got a good eye for maps, but it's not easy to get your bearings in a large warehouse with no working lights, as absolutely dark as you can get in a city. There's a printout of the floor-plan in her rucksack –  she doesn't look at it too long, makes her insanely vulnerable to any attack from behind, but eventually she works out where the flight of stairs down to the basement should be. Ought to be right in front of her, but all that she can see is damp-stained wall and yet more featureless, dust-coated floor. And – wait –

"Bingo," she whispers, breath steaming in the cold air. Barely visible under all the grime, there are sigils scratched into the floor before the wall. Two of them, a couple of feet apart, as if flanking either side of a doorway.

The wardings are pretty high up on Bobby's scale of _how fucked are we today_ , but Jo always knew Marax was something nastier than your everyday black-eyed demon, and at least they're not at the top of the tree. For a moment she crouches there, looking at the weird, angular marks, and seriously considers calling the old man and asking him to drive up here, help her out. Her creeping sense of vulnerability is only getting worse, and two hunters means twice the firepower, which can't hurt –

Then she thinks of those six poor kids, alone and afraid, and how she felt when she was trapped by a vengeful spirit on that job with the Winchester boys, the utter animal terror overwhelming even though she knew what was happening and that help was on the way. And, yeah, it might be more sensible to call for back-up and wait, but to hell with that. She's getting those children out _right now._

There's a hammer in her rucksack, which she figures is the most efficient way of breaking the sigils. The first is easy – two good swings, and there's a crack running through the outer ring, enough to disrupt it. She double-checks her shotgun's loaded and at her side, poised for attack. A deep breath, and she brings the hammer swinging down to break the second sigil.

As it hits, there's a flash of light that threatens to blind her, leaving violet afterimages ghosting over her vision, and an outrush of power, running across her skin like static electricity and bowling her over. The hammer recoils with such force it flies out of her grip, threatening to yank her arm from its socket.

She scrambles for her gun, blinking and shaking her head in an attempt to clear her vision, certain she'll be set upon by a snarling demon at any second. But there's no hand dropping on her shoulder, no telekinesis throwing her against a wall – only a stairwell that wasn't there before, as if the wall opened its mouth to reveal a toothless maw.

The hairs at the back of her neck are prickling at the sight of it. For as long as she can remember, she's known that there really are things that go bump in the night, and she's gotten pretty inured to weird shit, but staircases appearing out of thin air? Even when you're expecting it, that's spooky.

A moment to catch her breath, pick up the hammer and stow it back in her rucksack, grab her gun and torch, and let her eyes calm down a bit more. Then she takes the stairs at a run, heart beating at her ribs the way it always does when she's near the end of a hunt, when things are coming together and she can see what she has to do –

She can hear them now, faint murmurs echoing up from the darkness, and she calls out, "Hello? You down there?"

The reply that comes is child-high and pathetically frail: " _Help! Please, help us!_ "

Jo picks up her pace, nearly goes head over heels as she reaches the end of the stairs sooner than she'd expected. Then she's shouting, "I'm coming, I'm coming, don't worry –", her words echoing back at her as she sweeps the torch from side to side like a searchlight. The basement is almost as vast as the warehouse above, dank and cold, the air sour and stale.

Again that panicked voice rings out, " _Over here, please, over here!_ "

Instantly she turns in the direction of the cry, and there they are, over in the far corner, wide eyes gleaming in the beam of her torch, little hands wrapped around metal bars. Her chest is tight with relief as she sprints over to the cage, doing a headcount as she goes – six, yes, all six, oh thank _fuck_ , she's found them all.

In the time it takes her to reach the cage and find the heavy padlock chaining the door shut, she's gone from relief to rage. Six children, huddled together in a fucking animal cage in a freezing cellar, the youngest only five, all of them thin and _still_ in the way rabbits go still when they have no other way to evade the fox. Once the kids are safe, Jo is going to hunt Marax down and kill it. No matter how powerful the bastard is, she doesn't care, she's going to make it wish it never climbed out of Hell.

One of the children – a little black girl, her missing-child notice said nine years old, the one who called out to her, she thinks – is standing up, holding the bars. She seems the most aware of what's happening. The others are all huddled on the floor, some of their heads drooping in a way that suggests they're either in a state of utter exhaustion ( _let it not be hypothermia, the place is cold enough, but please God let it not be hypothermia_ ) or drugged up on something.

Jo looks the girl in the eye, pulls on her most calm-competent-confident hunter voice, and tells her, "I'm gonna have to shoot the lock off of this thing. Keep clear and cover your ears, okay, sweetie?"

The girl steps back, her little face serious, makes sure the others all have their hands over their ears, and nods to Jo. "We're ready." Atta girl.

Even if you're expecting it, the gunshot is impossibly loud, echoing through the cavernous basement. The padlock falls away, mangled and useless, and as she drags the cage door open, helps the kids stagger out, Jo is breaking out in a cold sweat. As if the shockwave of power when she broke the wardings wasn't enough to tip Marax off –

She quickly sizes up the kids. The oldest, a twelve year old girl, is also the most out of it, standing on her own but only just. The nine-year-old who spoke to Jo is the most alert, followed by an eight year old white boy, who is frighteningly pale but has a determined glare on his face. Jo digs through her rucksack, throws them each a torch, then one of the water pistols she packed after a moment of inspiration.

"The person who took you kids, they're a demon. Those are loaded up with holy water," she says, hoping they won't have to do the whole _yes demons are real, no you're not dreaming thing_ , because there really isn't time.

The kids look at each other, and then the boy pipes up, "The man who caught me, he had white eyes. But he wasn't blind. He _saw_ me."

 _Oh, shit._ She hefts her rucksack, tightens her grip on the shotgun, focuses on the mask of the hunter, the rescuer, in control and untouchable. Tries to project that air of both compassion and menace, the air the best have, which means you could be in a room with them and any kind of monster and still feel safe. "That's right, that means he's a demon. You see him again, you shoot him with that holy water, and you yell for me. Okay? Now follow me, and stick close together."

The ragged little gaggle of children follows her, close as ducklings behind their mother, some of them holding hands, the two with the water pistols one at the front and one at the back. They can't run, the twelve-year-old is barely shuffling along, and Jo is sick with adrenaline and the urge to _move_. She considers carrying her, but the girl is tall for her age, nearly as tall as Jo, and she just doesn't trust her ability to carry the kid and shoot at the same time.

All she can do is keep her finger on that trigger and her eyes peeled, scanning their surroundings side to side, methodically, the way Rufus and Bobby taught her. She forces herself to breathe slowly, in-two-three out-two-three, ignores the sweat and the prickling hairs and the adrenaline, _focuses._ Everything else melts away, her world narrowing down to this, and this alone: the slow steps, the gun in her hand, her awareness of every noise and every shadow, her charges behind her and the path she's weaving toward the fire escape.

She couldn't even guess at how long it takes them – time slows down to an agonising crawl when the world takes on that hunting-narrowness – but finally, she can see the door she left open, the faint orange glow of streetlamps beyond it. "Now you go on ahead," she tells the boy behind her, stepping to one side, "I'll be right behind –"

" _It's him!"_ The little nine-year-old girl screams it, and Jo spins around to see her shooting the water pistol at a man dressed all in black, a man who snarls and recoils as the holy water hits him, a man whose eyes are white all over.

"Go, go, run!" Jo shouts, lunging forward, instinctively throwing herself between the demon and the children, swinging up her shotgun, two-handed. Again the deafening bang, and the demon staggers back a few paces. She can hear the kids running and backs up, following them, her heart pounding.

"You think your salt can stop me, little girl?" The demon – Marax – hisses, his face twisting into a hideous grin as he stalks toward her.

She doesn't waste her breath on a comeback, just fires again. Hits him square in the chest, rocking him back on his heels.

"That's quite enough of that," Marax says, and flicks his hand. The gesture is casual, almost lazy, but the shotgun flies out of Jo's hands, going off again as it hits the floor. She lurches sideways in an attempt to retrieve her gun that she doesn't think for a second will work – and sure enough, she hasn't gone more than a foot before power coils around her, invisible chains hauling her off her feet, slamming her against the wall.

The impact knocks all the air from her lungs, and she's pretty sure she feels the plaster crack behind her. The demon is advancing, white eyes gleaming in the dark, grin promising pain and death. His psychic chains are holding her in place, arms thrown out to either side in mock-crucifixion pose with her feet three feet off the floor, rucksack digging painfully into her back. Her heart is pounding so hard it's painful, her guts turned to ice water, head spinning, can't think – but she glances to the side, sees the children holding one another up as they try to run, nearly there, nearly at the fire exit.

If she can just distract Marax, they can make it.

Dragging the words out makes her lungs burn, but she manages to say, "That all you got, huh?"

The demon's eyes narrow, and suddenly there are chains around her throat. Chains he's dragging tighter, and tighter, and she's straining for breath, arms shaking as she tries to drag them free, desperate to pull at the constriction, at chains that aren't there, oh fuck, he's Force-choking her and she can't breathe –

"I'm going to enjoy this."

The voice is a purr, eyes like bleached bone, swallowing her up, foul breath billowing over her, and there's no air, no air, no air –

"You should've minded your own business, interfering little maggot that you are."

Her vision is washing grey, the edges blurring –

"Marax. Let the girl go."

Another voice, a different voice, familiar, ringing out bell-clear and beautiful, and Jo thinks of fresh-fallen rain and doesn't know why – but the unbearable pressure relents. The decay-white gaze slides away, the demon steps back, and Jo can breathe. Only just, she has to fight for it, and she's still held up against the wall, but she can _breathe_.

"My, my, my. I didn't think your kind were so ... _sentimental_ ," Marax sneers, moving towards whoever just spoke, crouching slightly in a battle-ready position. There's a knife in his hand now, the blade long and recurved and savagely serrated, made of some black metal, inlaid with gold to form a mass of shimmering sigils. He feints to one side, and Jo can finally see who he's talking to.

It's Anna.

Anna, red hair loose and lifted by a breeze that isn't there, her pale face completely calm. Standing in what is unmistakeable a fighting stance, feet apart, knees slightly bent. One hand is raised, and in it she holds a slim dagger, nearly two feet long from hilt to tip, the blade so silver it seems almost to glow. She looks as comfortable holding it as Jo is with her favourite throwing knife, like it's not so much a weapon as a part of her.

"I'll give you one more chance," she says, and her voice is cold and shot through with _power_. Unmistakable power, running over Jo's skin like electricity, ruffling her hair, resonating in her chest and up through her legs. It sounds like church bells and the keen of birds of prey, like falling rain and rolling thunder, like absolutely nothing human. "Let the girl go."

Marax looks from Anna – or rather, Anna's massive knife – to Jo. His expression is neutral, considering, and then a smile splits his face. "Nah, I don't think so."

Just like that, the invisible chains are coiled round Jo's throat as tight as ever, and Marax is lunging towards Anna with bloody intent in his every motion. For a moment, she is absolutely certain he'll run her through, but Anna spins away and out of his reach with the effortless fluidity of a gymnast, and then it's on.

The pressure at Jo's neck is incredible, making her vision blur with blotches of static as her lungs strain and burn, but even so, even through that deoxygenated haze, she can't help but watch as Anna and Marax circle one another. It's like no knife fight she's ever seen before, both of them moving with sudden inhuman speed, their blades flashing dark and light, never touching as they duck and weave and spin, in and out of one another, as much a dance as a battle. And Jo loves knives and loves fighting, always has, loves the desperate physicality of it, and as her pulse pounds thick and red in her ears, she watches Anna twirl her dagger fast enough to blur, and thinks, _my God, so beautiful._

Then, all of a sudden, both of them moving so fast Jo can't even follow it, the blades meet. The moment of impact throws out electric blue sparks, and there's a sound like a mass of voices crying out, high and clear and piercingly loud –

And then both weapons are spinning through the air – Anna's knife clattering to the floor agonisingly near to where Jo is held against the wall – if she could only _move_ , if she could only _breathe –_

The demon's hands are wrapped around Anna's thin wrists, and if Jo had any doubts that Anna isn't human, they're all gone now. Because Marax's face is contorting, snarling, veins cording out on his neck and arms as he tries with all his demon-strength to force her hands down – hands that are glowing now, bright at the edges – or is that just Jo –

Jo is sinking now, waves of darkness rising up to meet her – she thinks she hears Anna cry out, agony in that thunder-clap voice now – and there is light streaming from Anna, blurring her, but the demon's pushing her hands away – both of them screaming –

And all at once the chains are gone. The chains pinning her to the wall by wrist and ankle and neck are gone, and Jo hits the floor on her hands and knees, scraping them bloody but she doesn't care, because there's air. There's air drawn down in her chest, and it's searing her as it goes, but she's never tasted anything sweeter. Then her eyes fall on that bright silver dagger, only inches from her right hand, and her vision is still swimming and she's shaking like a leaf, but she doesn't hesitate for even a second.

The knife is icy-cold to the touch, and far heavier than she'd anticipated, heavier than any blade that slim has a right to be. Her body is weak with strain and strangulation, she should be struggling to lift it, but adrenaline carries her. She's on her feet, bringing up the knife, and in the blue-white starburst light of Anna's power, she sees Marax's laughing face, and she lunges.

The silvery blade slides into the demon's skull as easily as through butter. The metal flares hot in her hand, and she lets go instinctively, watches the snarling face slacken, lit up with brilliant lightning from within, and her nostrils fill with sulphur and ozone as Marax drops dead at her feet.

"Jo! Jo!" Anna's voice is not quite tolling with that immense, reverberant power, but it's still too pure and fierce to be human. Her hands are gripping Jo's arms, holding her up as surely as the demon's invisible shackles – but her eyes are the same, rich and deep and that warm-earth hazel – Jo leans forward, presses their foreheads together, and smiles as the crisp smell of rain chases away the sulphur –

"We did it," Jo says, and then she sighs and lets the darkness overtake her.

* * *

Jo wakes with a start, flailing against the blankets, glancing around to look in vain for the children – then there are gentle hands on her shoulders, and a familiar voice hushing her, and she calms down enough to actually take in where she is. Her flat. Her bedroom in her flat, still in her clothes but with no shoes and in bed, the line of salt and the devils' trap at the door unbroken. She sinks back down onto the pillows, feeling like she might pass out again with sheer relief.

"Just rest a moment, easy, that's it." Anna is leaning over her, eyes big and concerned in her pale face. There's no hint of the power she had back in the warehouse, turning her voice into some unearthly weapon, each hand glowing supernova-bright, with the strength and speed to match a white-eyed demon. She's just a girl, now, just the doe-eyed redhead who walked into the Black Cat bar the other night and turned Jo's life upside down.

It could all have been a dream, some sleep-deprived hallucination, but Jo's palms are grazed, there are bruises blooming in rings around her wrists, and her throat is raw and aching. It's nowhere near as bad as she'd expect, given she was strangled nearly to death – getting her tonsils out when she was thirteen was worse – but still. Swallowing's gonna be a bitch for a couple days.

"The children," she says, and she's hoarse as hell, but she'll take that. When it comes down to being gravel-voiced for a bit, or being throttled in a warehouse by a demon, she'll take sounding like the Cookie Monster every time.

Anna draws back a little, but keeps a hand on Jo's shoulder, the touch cool and light. "They're safe, don't worry. I made sure you'd be alright, and then I took them all home. You saved them, Jo."

"Just doing my job." Jo looks away, blinking hard against the sudden threat of tears. Those kids, those poor six kids who were going to be slaughtered in some demon ritual for who knows what godawful reason, caged in a freezing cellar for days, alone and terrified – and she _saved_ them. Six families out there, reunited, six lives that would have been cut brutally short. For a moment she thinks of the boy and the girl she gave the holy-water-pistols to, instinctively taking up position at the front and the back, firing at the demon, helping the others out. Give 'em a few years, they'd make a pair of damn fine hunters, those two.

The hand at her shoulder squeezes slightly, the thumb stroking the edge of her t-shirt. She looks around at Anna, who is smiling gently, eyes bright. "'Sides, _you_ saved _me_ ," Jo says.

"You were the one who killed Marax," Anna replies, her smile a little wider now, voice edged with humour.

Jo can't help but grin, exhausted as she is. After three days of climbing up the walls, running herself ragged over this job and then nearly dying, it's done, and against all odds, the good guys won this one. "Let's call it even stevens," she says, and holds out a hand to shake on it.

"Even stevens," Anna agrees. Her hand is cold, and smaller than Jo expected. It feels delicate, like she could break the bones if she even squeezed a little too hard.

Suddenly, she's struck by the memory of these bird-thin hands holding her up, gripping her like steel, grappling with Marax and standing up to the impossible strength of a demon from the highest echelons of the Pit. The being leaning over her may look like a girl her age, unremarkable in jeans and a canvas jacket, but she ( _It?_ ) isn't. "You're not human," she says, and her voice is calm, her neutral _yes-I-know-it's-crazy-just-tell-me-what-you-saw_ interviewing voice.

Anna goes very still. "No, I'm not," she says, and draws back, sits in the chair by the window, with her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them.

"Okay then." Jo scoots back in her bed so she can lean against the headboard. The carefully neutral tone in her voice isn't an act: despite the fact she's sitting in her bedroom with a type of creature she's never met before, one with powers she doesn't understand but knows are on an honestly frightening scale, she's more relaxed than she's been in days.

She knows nothing about Anna, not really, but she knows this – she's still alive. She's alive, and home, and as far as she can see all her anti-demon and anti-spirit protections are intact, and if Anna wanted to kill her, there's not a doubt in Jo's mind that she'd already be dead. There's no lore she's ever heard that can explain the girl sitting in her rickety bedroom chair, but she saw those hands bleeding with impossible light, and she doesn't need one of Bobby's old tomes to tell her Anna is punching way above Jo's weight.

Jo also knows that she trusts Anna.

She's a little afraid when she says, "So what are you?", but it's not the kind of fear that comes when the clues fall into the shape of a monster. Not a wendigo-skinwalker-wraith fear, more the fear that bites at her when she sees her mom's face twist into her keeping-secrets look.

The girl sitting in her chair rests her chin on her knees, and says, "I'm an angel, Jo."

"You're an angel." The words feel weird in her mouth, but they make a fever-dream kind of sense. She's still kinda struggling with the _concept_ of angels, that they're actually as real as ghosts and all the rest of it, but the step from angels being real to an angel sitting in her bedroom with long red hair and faded jeans, well, why not. Why the hell not? It's not like demons waltz around with forked tails and little horns, and the only vampire Jo's ever killed was a black guy with an incredibly thick New Jersey accent. Can't expect angels to follow the stereotypes when nothing else does.

She has a thousand questions, but the one that comes out first is, of all things, "Is your name really Anna?"

The angel, who has been watching her steadily, looks away at that. "My true name ... My true name is _Anael_ ," she says, and there's a deep, worn-out sadness in her words, like there was in Jo's dream about her. Then she looks back at Jo, and one side of her mouth is crooking up, and she says lightly, "I like _Anna_ better, don't you?"

"It suits you," Jo agrees, smiling back at her. Then, before she has time to think and let the question start to seem absurd, she says, "I had a dream – we were at the Roadhouse, sitting on the swing out back – was that _you_?"

Anna hesitates. "Yes. Dream-walking, it's the easiest way for us to communicate from far away – I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude on something personal."

Is she _blushing_? Is that even possible for angels? "Hey, don't worry about that. It was a good dream, just a li'l weird, you know? Kinda thought I was going crazy."

"Been there, done that," Anna says, shaking her head, smiling in what Jo thinks is self-deprecation, and suddenly it's hard to remember that impossibly fast knife-fight, the hands shining electric-white, the overwhelming power of her voice in the warehouse. Then, she was utterly alien – but here, now, it looks and sounds and _feels_ as though Jo is talking to a girl her age, and nothing more. And that's harder to accept somehow than just the shock-and-awe stuff on its own.

There's something more here, something going on under the surface, she's almost positive.

"So, er, if you're an angel, what was the deal with Marax? I mean, how come you got me to track him down, and you didn't just, like, holy wrath the bastard?"

She's half expecting some pious spiel about this being a test, or some such street-preacher crap. What she actually gets is a rapid-fire crash course in Enochian wardings that would do Bobby Singer proud.

When Anna tails off, apparently running out of sigils to scrawl across Jo's notepad, Jo inspects the weird symbols – not a million miles off devils' traps, or even demonic sigils, although she doesn't recognise the alphabet. Might be worth looking it up, though, if angels are going to be a part of her life now. "So basically, the demon used a load of these so you guys couldn't find him, but his human-proofing wasn't as watertight?"

"Essentially." Anna's giving her that too-intense look again, hazel eyes hawk-bright and fixed on her like she's trying to stare right into her soul.

Fuck, maybe she _can_.

"Jo – what you did today, it was more important than you know," Anna says, and Jo swallows hard.

They're coming to it, whatever it is that's _really_ going on here. The other shoe's about to drop, she knows it, and it's not gonna be good. The news has never been good, not the last couple years. Not since the Devil's Gate opened, and the whole of North America lit up with omens that went on and on and haven't stopped, and it wasn't just your common-or-garden black-eyed fuckers anymore, but their yellow- and white-eyed friends, the type that could keep the hardest hunter awake at night. And definitely not since September this year, when the omens really kicked into overdrive and the bloody rain and bizarre hauntings and freak animal attacks started up. Since whispers started coming down the rumour-web that connects hunters from black dog-infested New England to the chupacabra-ridden South-West ( _all via Ellen Harvelle, thank you very much_ ), whispers of Lilith and the End Times.

"What is it?" Jo asks, and she doesn't believe that _the end is nigh_ crap. Doesn't believe it from sandwich-board evangelists on the street, doesn't believe it from hunters who've had one shot too much and been on one hunt too many. Doesn't believe it, of course she doesn't, but her mouth is dry and her hands are clenched tight. "What's going on here? I mean, this is more than just random demons doing their usual _pop up and wreak havoc_ thing, right, angel?"

Anna's lips press together, and she wraps her arms around her legs, hugging them tight to her chest. If it wasn't for the unblinking gaze prickling at Jo's skin, almost a physical weight, she'd look like a frightened little girl. "Have you heard of Lilith?"

The way Anna says the name, heavy and serious, makes Jo's stomach flip over. "Yeah, heard of her. She's the top of the hellspawn pile these days, pretty much every demon I've seen in the last couple years has been raving 'bout her."

"Yeah, that would be her." Anna is _really_ staring at her now, and there's something – wild – in her expression. She's gotten even paler, her eyes are wide, fierce, and the words sound like they're being dragged out of her against her will. Jo would swear her hands are trembling where they grip her jeans. "Lilith is trying to break what're called Seals. There's hundreds of them, rituals, prophecies – basically, conditions that have to be fulfilled. If she breaks sixty-six of them ..." The angel swallows, bites her lip, and Jo realises she's holding her breath in anticipation.

"If the Sixty-Six Seals are broken, Lucifer's Cage opens. Lucifer brings the Apocalypse."

If she'd heard that in Anna's terrifying angel voice, Jo would have freaked out, been stunned into hysteria. As it is, it just sounds surreal, and she almost bursts out laughing. She can't be sitting here in the bedroom of her cheap-ass apartment in Denver, calmly discussing _Lucifer_ and the fucking _Apocalypse._ Even for a girl who asked for, and got, a set of silver throwing knives for her eighteenth birthday ( _all the better to kill you with_ ) that's a bit much. Can't be happening. Just. Nope.

But there's no flicker of doubt in Anna's voice, and her knuckles are white, and suddenly Jo's breaking out in a cold sweat all over again. "Oh, shit, you actually – this really is it, isn't it? The End Times?" She can't believe she's saying the words, that she's buying into this bull, but she is.

She's sitting up in bed in her favourite Iron Maiden tee and her worn-in hunting jeans, and her throat is hoarse from a demon choking her Darth Vader-style, and she's discussing the end of the world with an angel. This, somehow, is what her life has become. Fuck.

Caught up in her own thoughts, she doesn't notice the angel get up, and jumps when Anna lays a soft hand on her cheek. She flushes – caught off guard again, dammit girl – but the face looking down at her is kind, compassion taking the place of that wildness, and it soothes her.

"It's not the End Times, not if I have anything to say about it," Anna says, quiet, soft, but with just a hint of rainstorms in her words.

And really, Jo should have put the pieces together quicker, but after three days of sleep deprivation, near-strangulation, and getting her head around the existence of angels and now apparently the Devil, she'll forgive herself. "Marax's ritual, killing those six children, that was a Seal, wasn't it?"

"Yes." Anna strokes her cheek, and smiles, and Jo's stomach flips over again. ( _Down, girl, Jesus, there's a time and a place!_ ) "And you stopped it from breaking, Jo."

She's lost in that smile, giddy with it, as the cold fingers slide down to skate lightly over her throat. "I used a little of my power to heal you – not all the way, but you should be good as new in a couple of days." Then they're back at her face, tracing her jawline. "Thank you, Jo."

Suddenly, it hits her that this is a goodbye. Anna's about to _leave_ her. Jo grabs her wrist, aware that it won't do a damn thing to keep the angel here if she wants to go, but hell if she can think of anything better. "Wait – Anna, hold up a minute."

The angel lifts an eyebrow. "Yes?"

Jo doesn't let herself think about it, just ploughs ahead. "If you're going after more Seals, I wanna help. I mean, if I can. But if there's anything – _anything_ – I can do, I want in on this, okay?"

Anna blinks, even does a tiny double-take. She says hesitantly, "It's dangerous. Not just Lilith's demons, some of my brothers and sisters, even. You're not obligated –"

She tightens her grip on the slim wrist in her hand, confident she's not going to hurt Anna. "I know. C'mon, angel, I hunt monsters and demons and homicidal ghosts for a living, I can handle danger."

"This is not like anything you've done before, I –"

"Please." Jo puts her hand over Anna's where it rests against her cheek, lets their fingers slide together. "I _want_ to do this. To help."

There's a pause that seems to stretch out into eternity, nothing but Anna's eyes, deep and bright and beautiful, and the sound of Jo's breathing, and the sweet crisp smell of earth. Their linked hands slip down over Jo's face, brushing her lips, so light – she doesn't dare close her eyes, hypnotised by the fine-boned face hovering over her –

"Such a brave soul," Anna says, and then she leans in, presses her lips to Jo's temple ( _soft-silk and cool, and that smell heavy around her, in her hair, brushing Jo's face, and does she taste like that too?_ ). "If there's anything, I'll let you know."

Somehow, she manages to speak past the sudden tightness in her throat. "Keep in touch. Okay? Anna? In my dreams, or, or –"

"I promise," the angel says, drawing back. Jo catches just a flash of her pale face, bird-of-prey eyes, and then the air around them tightens, and she feels the down-draft of phantom wings, and then she's alone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pair of Anna's siblings pay Jo a visit, searching for their sister.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for taking a while between updates, my life has been a little busy of late!  
> Un-beta'd, all mistakes are my own.  
> Enjoy!

"- and what looks like a woman in white taking out hitchhikers and whatnot over in Kansas, if Santa Fe's too far for you."

Jo narrows her eyes at the dog-eared old road map of the States she has tacked up on her wall. Pins mark towns she's visited on hunts, and the home bases of Bobby, her mom, plus a couple other hunters she knows and trusts. "Santa Fe should be fine, I'll just have to blow off my job, come up with some excuse for disappearing on their asses for a week or so." Besides, a woman in white, seriously? After two years of demons galore, ghosts are boring as hell – pun intended. Santa Fe's not a great job, but it's better than that, at least.

"You don't sound that enthusiastic about it, hon."

"Yeah, well." Jo fiddles with the pin at Omaha, the pin representing her mom. "Sounds like pretty low-key stuff for demons, probably just witches with delusions of grandeur."

Ellen makes the same tutting noise she used to use when Jo had gotten another detention for fighting, or was getting underfoot at the Roadhouse. "Witches are a damn sight easier to handle than demons."

"Damn sight less important, too."

Almost as soon as she says it, Jo regrets it. Ellen's voice switches from mildly exasperated to the _I'm gonna lay down the law and you're gonna listen or so help me God_ tone she used on police officers sniffing around the Roadhouse, particularly belligerent hunters, and her daughter. "Now you listen to me, Joanna Beth –"

"I know, I know, I'm just – mom, _I know._ " Her mom's gearing up for the lecture about hunting being dangerous, and a serious job, and about protecting innocent people, and not some adrenaline-junkie jaunt, and how the do-'em-in-your-sleep jobs that are more likely to kill you via boredom than anything else are just as important, blah blah blah. Jo could probably recite the whole damn spiel off the top of her head. "I'm gonna take a couple days to sort stuff out with work, but I'll do the job, okay?"

"Okay, then." And maybe she was a bit too sharp on that retort, because Ellen hangs up on her then and there.

"Oh, for God's sake." Jo throws her phone onto her bed in frustration. She should probably call her mom back, apologise, grovel a little bit, but she just doesn't have the energy, not now. She's not up to humouring Ellen – they're too alike, both as stubborn as one another, it'll just degenerate into another fight. And she can't bring herself to explain – well.

For the life of her, Jo doesn't know how to explain the last few days to her mother. Ellen Harvelle is probably the most informed, best connected hunter in the country, with the possible exception of Bobby Singer. She's seen and heard all the crazy stuff that's been going down lately. She was saying they were looking at something on the scale of Armageddon when Jo thought that was all just superstition and old hunters getting melodramatic. And despite that knowledge, Ellen's just been carrying on as normal, scouring the news reports and passing on hints of ghosts and witches and monsters, like always. Like nothing's changed.

But now – now Jo _knows,_ and it's a little like when she was a kid and really got her head around what her father did and how he died. Just like that made learning the times tables seem completely pointless, knowing that there are angels going to war in a desperate bid to stop Lilith and her minions from starting the Apocalypse – that makes little-league witches dipping their toes into some demonic grimoire feel like a complete waste of time. Yeah, they might be fucking over some of their neighbours, but there's a bigger picture here, and Jo is just _aching_ to rejoin that fight.

She can't explain it to her mother. Can't see how she'd even begin. Ellen's always been a pragmatist, driven by practicality and common sense, and Jo loves her, loves her fiercely, right down to the marrow of her bones and the core of who she is, but they aren't close. Well, they're close in that Jo knows that when the chips are down and the shit hits the fan, Ellen will always have her back, would die for her, kill for her, if need be. Not in a way that gives her room to lay out her heart and tell her mom what this all _means_ to her. Hunting, following her daddy's footsteps, being some kind of force for good in this damn world – and now all this latest stuff. Seals and angels and _Lucifer_ for crying out loud, shaking up everything she thought she knew, and then there's Anna.

Hell, Jo can't even explain to herself what it is that has Anna haunting her thoughts, let alone trying to explain it to Ellen.

Not for the first time this past week, she murmurs, a not-quite-prayer, "Come on, Anna, where are you?"

No reply. Not that she was expecting one. It's been all quiet on the angelic front since that conversation in her bedroom – no more random appearances, not even in her dreams.

Course, Anna's probably busy, off fighting more demons with that incredible blade of hers, maybe side-by-side with another angel, like partners in some lethal dance ( _the way Anna could_ move _, God, still gives Jo a thrill just thinking of it_ ). Has to be pretty time-consuming, being a soldier in a war against the Queen of Hell.

Still, Jo would feel better if she just knew Anna was _safe_ , at least ...

But no. This train of thought is going nowhere fast, just getting her more wound up about the whole situation, and she has to be down at the Black Cat soon. Those drinks aren't gonna mix themselves.

"Up and at 'em," she says, turning away from the map. A shift at the bar, then a trip to New Mexico to kick the asses of some idiot witches, just what the doctor ordered. It'll keep her mind right off the Apocalypse, not to mention angels with hair like fire.

* * *

By the time Jo finishes her shift, she's whistling. It's been a good night, busy enough to keep her on her toes and unable to brood over things, but not so busy she's run off her feet and ready to drop. And her two favourite co-workers were behind the bar with her – Steve with his wisecracks, a terrible pun round every corner, and Kath, pulling off pitch-perfect impressions of dickish customers, their snippy boss, and her idiotic boyfriend.

Much as she loves her job – her _real_ job, not the one keeping her in food and rent – sometimes she needs to be able to shrug all that off. Forget about the blood and violence and fear, leave behind Jo Harvelle with her knife collection and the devils' trap drawn on the underside of her doormat, and just be Beth Singer for awhile. Working at a bar, joking about with friends, with no worries bigger than fighting with her mom, wrapped in a safety blanket of normality.

Just for a little while. Long enough to keep her sane, stop it all from crushing her under its weight, the way hunting will if you let it, but not so long she starts crawling up the walls. It's nice for a few hours, a day or two, playing at being normal, but it's still a relief to come home to salt lines and maps of omens. She'd tried it at school, but that's just not _her._

Still, tonight's been a good night. Tomorrow she'll pack up her truck and head south, but for now a few scoops of Ben & Jerry's and a _Simpsons_ re-run will round it off nicely.

She lets herself into her flat, checks the protections on automatic pilot as she hangs up her jacket, kicks the boots off her aching feet. All good. No beasties tonight. All the local beasties must have better sense than that.

She has her head in the freezer, trying to decide between Phish Food and Cookie Dough, when there's a sound from behind her. It's strange, half-familiar– like something ripping, ruffling, flapping – and she can't place it, but she tenses instantly, switching seamlessly into hunter-mode. Okay, something behind her, she's barefoot, her switch-blade's in her jacket pocket, the nearest gun at her bedside table, but she's got her flask of holy water, front door's to the left plus a couple windows if she needs a quick exit –

Letting the freezer door swing shut, Jo turns around slowly, left hand drifting down to loosen the screw-cap of her hip-flask, bending her knees, settling into a fight-ready stance. Her heart is hammering, adrenaline sweeping her thoughts away – there's something in her home, and she has to get it out –

"Joanna." Standing before her are a man and a woman, both clad in sober black suits, their faces blank and emotionless. It's the woman who says her name, extending a hand toward her, palm out, like she's some skittish wild animal they're trying to tame.

They don't _look_ like monsters. Actually they look like a pair of hunters all dolled up to interrogate witnesses, but there's a whole goddamn laundry list of monsters that don't look like monsters, so that means nothing. The list of things she knows of that can just up and materialise in a flat ringed with salt and protected by a half dozen different wards, that's a lot smaller. Or rather, non-existent.

"What are you?" Her voice doesn't shake as she shifts to the left, trying to get between the two intruders and the door. Half an eye on where her jacket is hanging up. Ten to one, silver won't help her at all, but she'll feel a hell of a lot better with some kind of _weapon_ at hand, not just a bit of holy water. "What do you want from me?"

The man says, "Where is Anna Milton?" His voice is weirdly flat, no inflection, and he's staring at her like she's – a kind of interesting specimen or something, not a person at all. It's unmistakably alien, _other_ , the way the predatory stare of a vampire or the savage grin of a demon is _other_. Not-human.

She's never heard Anna's surname, didn't think that she would have one, but she is absolutely certain that's who they mean. No way is this a coincidence. And that means she is in way, way over her head.

"I don't know that name," she says, and thank God for the fact that hunting teaches you how to lie, smooth and barefaced and convincing. Nearly at her jacket now – anything that's looking for Anna is totally out of Jo's league and she's almost certain the knife will be useless, but, hell, a girl needs a comfort blanket at a time like this. "Who the fuck are you?"

It's the woman who answers. "We are Chamuel and Jeremiah, angels of the Lord." In spite of all her experience, all the shit she's watched go down with her poker face intact, Jo's mouth falls open before she can stop it. _Angels_? What? But she was so sure they were threatening, every instinct she has screaming at her to run, it doesn't make any _sense._

Oblivious to Jo's confusion the woman – Chamuel – continues, not a flicker of expression on her face or in her voice, "And you will tell us where our sister is hiding, or we will destroy you."

Well, okay then. Still not a clue what's going on, but _that_ was clear. Jo forces a smile, starts to tell them again she's never heard of Anna to distract them as she moves towards the door, but all of a sudden she's rooted to the spot. Can't move. It's as though the soles of her feet are simply welded to the floor, her muscles simply refusing to obey her. As a show of psychic strength it's far more subtle than Marax's invisible shackles, but all the more terrifying for it. "What – what are you –"

Jeremiah moves closer – he's baby-faced and wide-eyed, and it just looks wrong set against the creeping power rolling through his words. "Don't lie to us, Joanna. We know you've been working with Anna. If you tell us where she is, you will still be spared."

His voice is echoing through her, making her knees shake and her ears ring. Above her, the lights spit and flicker, sparks flying from every electrical sockets in the room, and, oh fuck, she's going to die. After everything, she's going to die at the hands of _angels_ , and isn't that a turn up for the books?

Mouth dry, nails biting blood from her palms, she says, " _I don't know_."

If she did, would she tell them?

Anna had warned her – _it's dangerous ... some of my brothers and sisters, even_ – and Jo knows fuck-all about angel politics or celestial family drama or whatever this is, but Anna helped her save those kids. Saved _Jo_. Something's not right here, but Anna said she's trying to stop Lilith, and maybe it's stupid, maybe it's irrational, but Jo caught a glimpse of her true self in that warehouse, in that tense bedroom-conversation ( _in her dream_ ), and she believes Anna. Believes that, whatever's going on with the angels, Anna and Jo are on the same side.

Jo's never made a habit of betraying her friends, and she doesn't mean to start now.

Her chin comes up and she meets Jeremiah's gaze. He's probably packing enough power that he could snap his fingers and make her head explode, but right now? She doesn't give a flying fuck. Angel or no angel, all she's seeing is some supernatural bully who thinks he gets to push humans around because they're smaller and weaker than he is. Same old, same old.

The angels must be able to read something in her face, or maybe her aura or some shit like that, because Jeremiah's lips thin out and Chamuel's eyebrows lift. Tiny movements, but it's the first hints of emotion she's seen from them.

Then the ceiling light explodes, showering her in shards of broken glass. She jumps, would probably have gone three feet in the air if it weren't for the angels' power locking her in place – as it is, just throws her arms over her head and strains the muscles in her legs, nearly overbalancing. The light is followed by the television screen, the lamp on her desk, and then all the windows, shattering outwards in a wave of flying glass and a sudden rush of wind.

"This is your last chance," Jeremiah intones in a voice that has Jo pressing her hands to her ears, _fuckfuckfuck too much make it stop_. "Tell us where Anna Milton is hiding. Now."

She's huddled against the floor now, arms shielding her head against the rain of glass and the assault of that impossible voice. There's blood in her mouth ( _did she bite her lip? Her tongue?_ ) and the taste of copper fear, and her heart is pounding a mile a minute, she's as afraid as she's ever been – but she lifts her head to face the two figures standing over her, cold and implacable. She thinks of the unflinching steel in her mother's spine after her father died and left her alone, after the Roadhouse burned and she risked her life shutting the Devil's Gate. Of Bobby Singer's sarcasm in the face of everything Hell spits out, of Dean Winchester's wild reckless grin, of Anna stroking her face and calling her _brave_ – and she says, "Go to Hell."

Jeremiah's eyes flare, and he raises his hand, which is starting to glow impossibly bright at the edges, power spilling through the seams, the way Anna's did back in the warehouse. Oh, this is it, she's going to die, and she closes her eyes, thinking wildly, _Mom, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry._

But there's no supernova of power rushing through her to break her atoms apart, only a small back-of-the-throat choking sound from above her. And the smell of rain, and a dream-familiar voice that says, "But I'm right here, brother."

Jo's eyes fly open. Jeremiah is still standing over her – or rather, being held up by a hand at his shoulder. His eyes are wide and sightlessly staring, and through his slack mouth there protrudes a long and lethal silver blade. A blade Jo knows will be void-cold to the touch.

Then the blade retracts, and the angel is falling to the floor of her apartment like so much dead meat, and in his place stands Anna. Anna, twirling her dagger like a cheerleader's baton and turning to face Chamuel.

There's a ringing in Jo's ears. A shell-shocked part of her mind keeps repeating, _you're alive, you're alive, you're alive_ , another part singing for joy at the sight of that fine-boned pale face, while by far the largest part of her is looking at the matching dagger that Chamuel pulls out of thin air, and screaming the need to run for shelter. Two angels – honest-to-fucking-God _angels_ – are about to throw down in her freaking flat, and she does not want to get caught in the crossfire of this particular family row if she can help it.

The power holding her in place is gone – dissolved when Anna stabbed Jeremiah – and she scoots backwards on her ass, as quick and quiet as she can manage. She's fully intending to lock herself in her bedroom, but then she catches sight of Anna's face, and it brings her up short.

Chamuel's crouching slightly, circling Anna, who simply pivots in place, keeping her eyes fixed on the other angel. Everything about her posture is battle-ready, coiled and taut, a panther ready to launch itself on its prey – but rather than being drawn tight with deadly focus, her face is impossibly sad.

"Stand down, my sister," Anna says, and oh, those words _ache_. And are those – is she _crying_?

That really is her sister there, Jo realises suddenly. Calling the other angels her siblings wasn't just Anna being metaphorical or poetic or something – it was the truth. The real, soul-deep truth. And now she's preparing to fight her sister in order to protect Jo.

 _I can't leave her_. It's an absurd thought, because there's not a thing in the world Jo could do to help right now, but she knows she's going nowhere. Not while Anna's in this much pain. Not happening. She presses herself against the wall, and watches, heart in her mouth, and prays she won't get in the way.

"Stand down," Anna repeats, this time with force behind it, the order ringing out like the cry of an eagle, fierce and pure.

The air in the room seems to tighten, charged with Anna's _presence_. She doesn't look any different, no scorching light bleeding from her skin, but there is no mistaking her for human now. Jo's mind is scrabbling for adjectives and coming up short, but it's like her flat falls away, everything that's holding her in the here and now is gone. There's nothing but the two angels circling one another – and Jo is caught up with them, feels like she's held out of time and space, because what does _time_ mean to creatures like this –

"Stand down, Chamuel," Anna says again, and her voice is echoing and layered with age, so old, and yet not at all. Her face is still soft with that deep sorrow, and it's in her words too, sadness running under the power.

Chamuel's eyes narrow, and she shifts her grip on her blade, snarling, "You don't command me now, _traitor_."

Before Jo can even begin to process that, Chamuel lunges for Anna. For a moment her heart stutters – but she's not afraid, not really, because although Chamuel is fast, far faster in her movements than any human could hope to match, she has barely a shade of the terrible beauty of Anna in battle. It's nothing Jo could explain, could put into words, but she knows when she sees that savage lunge, that Chamuel is an angel who has been taught to be a warrior. Anna _is_ a warrior.

The clash is short – Jo can't follow the twist-parry-stab, the movements so fast her brain can't keep up. All she sees is a whirl of red hair and dark cloth and silver knives, and then Chamuel lets out a scream that hits Jo like a punch to the gut, bile rising in her throat, a swarm of insects crawling over her skin, cold sweat breaking out across her forehead and down her back.

The mind-rending shriek lasts ( _forever_ ) only a few seconds, and then it trails away into blessed, beautiful silence, and a second body falls to lie at Anna's feet. And the feeling of being held out of the flow of time is gone, and there's just Jo, sitting on the floor of her apartment in Denver, breathing hard and fast, like a trapped animal, mind scrabbling to adjust. She knows where she is, and that was weird as fuck and she's trembling all over, but she knows where ( _when_ ) she is.

Anna looks down at the corpse of her sister for a moment, then up to meet Jo's gaze. She is very, very pale, lips parted slightly, eyes wide and unreadable, the hand that holds her bloodstained knife hanging loose at her side. At once she looks young and transfixed with grief and pain, and ancient and remote, like one of those optical illusions where two pictures can be made out of the same shapes.

There is a long pause, silent except for the panicked punch of Jo's breathing. She's safe, she _knows_ she's safe, it's just the message seems to be taking a while to get through to her body, still on high fight-or-flight alert. Eventually she gets it together enough to rasp out, "Anna, what the hell?"

As soon as the words leave her lips, it occurs to her that this might not be the most appropriate thing to say to an angel. She has to bite down against the hysterical laugh that threatens to bubble up at that thought.

For a moment, Anna's expression softens – the illusion of the ageless angel dissolving until all Jo can see is a frail redheaded girl with despair in her eyes. She opens her mouth to say something, and Jo's stomach clenches in anticipation – whatever she says is going to be _painful_ , raw emotion, she can tell –

Then Anna closes her eyes, and when she opens them again it's like a shutter has been drawn down over her face. No emotion left at all, nothing but a blank mask, as though made of stone. She flicks her wrist, and the dagger she is holding vanishes into nothingness ( _and, damn, but that's creepy_ ). Then she crouches, laying a hand on the two dead bodies before her, and says to Jo, without looking up, "I will take care of the bodies. You need to pack your things and go."

"Well, I wasn't planning on just hanging about," Jo says, not the best come-back in the world, but she's too shaken to care. This whole thing is just – beyond her pay grade, and how. "There's a job in Santa Fe," she adds, more an attempt to get back to vaguely normal territory than anything else. As long as she's got something mundane to focus on, she'll be fine. Mundane she can handle.

"Good. I will meet with you later." Anna still doesn't look up at her, the fall of auburn hair hiding her face. Jo is about to ask her _what's going on, what the fuck just happened_ , and most importantly, _are you okay_ – but there's that ripping, ruffling sound she heard before ( _beating wings_ ) –

And then Anna's gone. The two dead angels, as well. Just gone. Into thin air.

Leaving Jo sitting alone on her kitchen floor, with nothing to show she didn't just imagine it all but the shards of shattered glass scattered all over the floor. _Definitely_ above her pay grade. And the landlord is gonna have her ass for sure – just another reason to split a little earlier than planned.

"Fuck," she says aloud, and then, grimacing, gets to her feet, trying to avoid stepping on any broken glass.

Time to get this show on the road.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Jo's encounter with Anna's siblings, things have to change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO I'm really sorry for taking so damn long updating this! Real life has unfortunately been interfering with things, and I also got sucked into writing a couple other fics that have been eating my brain. BUT better late than never?
> 
> [I tumble](http://capricorn-child.tumblr.com) and I love and adore feedback.  
> Also, happy femslash february, y'all.

Jo's never been one of the drifter type of hunters, the way the Winchester brothers are, itinerant and forever sleeping on shitty motel beds, or sofas, or curled up in the backseat of their absurd car. She just straight-up doesn't have the level of wanderlust for that kind of thing. Sure, she enjoys driving through the country, watching the landscape slowly change, all that, but she also likes having at least a semblance of stability. A bolt-hole she can retreat to when she needs downtime.

Even if she prefers not to live out of a suitcase, though, she's not an idiot. Unless you're Bobby Singer, you've gotta be ready and able to get your shit together and go at short notice. No matter how many hex bags and salt lines and sawed-offs you've got, nowhere's safe, not really. The quiver in Ellen's voice, fragile and faint over a long-distance phone line, after the Roadhouse burned down taught her that.

Two hours after Anna vanished into thin air, Jo's packed up and on the road, heading south.

She's got all her stuff in the back of the trunk – clothes and weaponry and her laptop and the small but respectable selection of books on demonology and all her other bits and pieces – and she's on the move. Not exactly how she'd planned to leave Denver, having a couple angels manifest in her flat and basically kick her out, but hell. Them's the breaks.

Quite what she's gonna do when she gets to Santa Fe, she hasn't worked out yet. She's got another set of fake ID and all that: Elizabeth Singer has to go, for now at least, because even if Anna disposes of the bodies in some untraceable angel way, those were some hella suspicious circumstances to leave in. So she'll change up, that's easy, she always makes sure to have aliases ready in reserve – saw one too many good hunters land their asses behind bars that way, back at the Roadhouse.

It's more the money that's the problem. She's got savings, but they aren't gonna last her all that long. She needs a job, and for _that_ she needs an address a little more permanent than a motel room, and _God_ this situation kinda sucks.

You'd think getting involved with angels would make things easier, but apparently not.

You might also think that the presence of angels and the whole thing about the apocalypse being nigh would make this oh-so-human shit about money and jobs pale into insignificance. Which, not so much. Just makes it even more irritating, like when her truck died on her that one time in the middle of a pretty nasty wendigo hunt with Rufus. She has a very vivid memory of being out on a back road, middle of the night, poking about under the hood of the damn thing with a torch, thinking, _not only have I got a ravening monster to deal with, but now my fucking car breaks down as well? What is this shit?_

It's not like Jo had ever been under the impression that hunting was super-lucrative as a career choice, and most of the time she doesn't really care – there's things a hell of a lot more important than money – but damn. Gotta admit it would be nice to get paid every now and then for putting your ass on the line. A little compensation for dealing with the Legions of Hell and angels that can break your mind with their voices, that'd be great.

_Wishes were horses, fools'd ride, Joanna Beth_. She hears her mother's old catchphrase in the back of her mind, rolls her eyes at the memory, and decides then and there that no matter how tight the Santa Fe situation gets, she won't run to her mom for help. Gotta stand on her own two feet, once and for all.

She's mulling it all over, starting to feel just the slightest bit pissed about the whole thing, when Anna appears in the passenger seat with a muffled sound of wings beating and absolutely no warning. Jo jumps and nearly swerves right off the road.

" _Jesus Christ, could you not?"_ she yells, voice high with shock as she presses a hand to her chest and wills her heart to calm the fuck down.

"I'm sorry, Jo, I didn't mean to scare you." Anna sounds contrite, a little embarrassed even, but when Jo glances across at her, she doesn't _look_ it. Just looks – abstracted. Gazing out through the windscreen with a thousand-yard-stare, as though her body might be here in the car, but _she's_ really far away, somewhere she can't be reached.

On second thoughts, Jo realises with a chill down her spine, that might even be the _truth_.

She shakes her head, dismissing the thought. Can't be doing with getting caught up in all that, there's enough to be dealing with already. Aiming for nonchalance, she says, "So, d'you wanna explain what all that was, back there? How come your siblings are trying to kill you, or whatever it was they wanna do after they track you down?"

There's a long, long pause. Jo very determinedly doesn't look over at Anna, keeping her eyes tight to the road. Whatever it is that's really going on here, behind the scenes, among the angels where Jo can't see and Anna has avoided showing her, it's gonna come out now. It's _got_ to, she's not going to rest until it does, and she knows it's not gonna be good. Whatever it is, she's not going to like what she hears.

Eventually, Anna says, "I can't explain. You'll be in danger if I do."

Another sideways look tells Jo she's still glazed over, absent, as though she's lost somewhere high and remote, all her attention drawn away to an angel-place, where everything human is just some impossibly tiny, insignificant detail. And just like that, Jo's _had_ it with this shit.

"Oh yeah?" she snaps. "Well, Jeremiah was getting ready to blow me to bits when you arrived. They were gonna _kill_ me because I wouldn't – couldn't – tell them where you were. So I think I'm in danger as it is, and you can at least tell me _why_."

"It's a long story." Anna's voice is taut, tight with tension, like a witness on the verge of coming clean about whatever fairytale nightmare they saw. That _please don't make me remember_ tone usually gets to Jo, makes her stomach roll with sympathy and curse this part of the job, but right now she's pissed as hell and downright glad to hear it.

At least it's some kind of reaction, some emotion, not just that infuriating detachment.

"Pretty long drive to Santa Fe," she points out.

"I guess it is." Anna sighs heavily.

When Jo glances over at her, she's leaning forward, head in her hands, long red hair hanging in curtains that shield her face. She looks oddly vulnerable – the angelic presence, the power that's been cloaking her since she appeared in Jo's flat with her blade in hand, has diminished. Without it she seems physically smaller, and it's hard not to be fooled by that impression. Hard to remember that at any moment, the girl sitting beside her could reach out for that power and wrap herself in it until she's burning white-hot and unstoppable.

After a moment's pause, Anna says, "The first thing you have to understand is Heaven, and angels, they aren't like you imagine. It's not – rainbows and clouds and harps and – it's not like that. _Angels_ aren't like that. After the Fall, after Lucifer rebelled, the Archangels said – they commanded us not to feel. No feelings, no emotions. Only obedience, that's all we had, and not to our Father, not to Him, but to _them._ "

She spits the word _them_ out with sudden, shocking vehemence, and Jo jumps a little. Anna's hands are twisted tight into her hair, pulling at it, and Jo can hear her breaths coming fast and shallow. Part of her wants to stop the car, reach out to stroke Anna's shoulder, try to calm her, but she doesn't quite dare. Too afraid that the slightest interruption will stop the confession in its tracks, send them all the way back to square one, Anna faraway and cold and alien.

Jo keeps on driving, one eye on Anna's hands, white-knuckled in her own hair ( _thank God the road is quiet_ ), and says nothing. Eventually, slowly, the angel starts to talk again.

"Obedience to the Archangels, I mean. In Heaven, I was high-ranking, just one step down from the Archangels, the head of the Garrison, and I watched, saw how they were – I lost faith. Michael, he kept saying we had to have faith, but Gabriel vanished, and Raphael was – they were all just lost, like the rest of us. Children lost without our Father."

Anna gives a short laugh, harsh and cynical and a little shaky, and all the hairs rise up along Jo's arms and down her spine as it registers with her that she is sitting in a car with an angel discussing _God_. She has to bite down on her bottom lip to suppress a hysterical giggle of her own, because, fuck, this is beyond weird. This is too much.

"Anyway – I stopped believing in the Archangels. In Michael's _plan_. And I – I ripped out my Grace." Her voice rises then, threatening to break, and for a moment Jo thinks she's going to burst into tears, but she just lets out another shaken little laugh, and goes on. "An angel's Grace, it's the source of our power, a part of us, a bit like a human's soul. I tore mine out and I fell to Earth, and I became human."

"You _what_?" Jo blurts, despite herself.

Another laugh, more exhausted than cynical this time. In Jo's peripheral vision, she sees Anna sit up, leaning against the seat again, head tilted back, eyes closed and arms wrapped tight around her own shoulders, hugging herself. "Yeah. Human. I was born Anna Eleanor Milton, December 12th, 1985. Lived in Ohio. Had a family, went to college, friends, parties, the whole nine yards. Didn't remember a thing about Heaven, or the Garrison, or ever being Anael."

"So what happened?"

Sounding tired beyond words, Anna says slowly, "A few months ago, when the first Seal was broken, angels came to Earth – not just watching, but walking on Earth – for the first time in centuries. I started hearing them, their voices in my head, and I –" She breaks off, covering her face with her hands again, and Jo can hear her taking deep, juddering breaths. It sounds as though she's trying to stop herself from hyperventilating. That is, if an angel, or a not-quite angel, or whatever she is, even needs to breathe.

Jo's about to say something, try to calm Anna down, ( _though what the hell Jo can offer in the way of comfort to a being like Anna is quite beyond her_ ) but then Anna lifts her hands from her face, folding them neatly in her lap. The raggedness of her breathing has evened out, and she's once more in perfect control.

Her is face pale and delicate but resolute, and her voice carries none of that deep, deep exhaustion as she tells Jo, "Once I started to hear the other angels' voices again, and then remembered who I am, _what_ I am, I was caught in the crossfire of Heaven and Hell. Lilith would give anything to know what I know, and the Archangels – well. I disobeyed. That makes me Heaven's Most Wanted, you could say. The only way I could escape was to take back my Grace. And so I became ..."

She trails off, and Jo glances over to see Anna holding out her hands, turning them over slowly, staring at them with hawkish intensity, as though she's trying to puzzle out some enigma. As though she's not quite sure what it is she's looking at. It's a little like how Jo's seen stoners get after smoking too much, gazing at their own hands, fascinated, like they've never seen these things attached to their arms before. Except in Anna's case, it's more – well, probably anyone who was an angel and then a human and then an angel again would be entitled to a bit of an existential crisis.

"I became what I am now," Anna says quietly. There's something in her voice of the wildly powerful, untouchable creature who walked into Jo's dreams and seemed to gaze right down into her soul, but just as much of the girl who kissed her temple and held her hand and gained her trust. "Whoever that is."

And yeah, that's not something Jo's exactly qualified to help figure out. Metaphysical identity crises are way too much for her to handle. Time to dial it back, focus on the practicalities, her tried-and-true hunter method of coping with whatever too-weird shit crosses her path. "So, um, you're basically an angel, but you have all your human memories and whatnot?"

"Basically."

"And you're trying to stop the Seals from breaking, but you're, what, on the run from the rest of the angels?"

"Yes. The Garrison is attempting to stop Lilith, but they're caught up in fighting the demons, and Heaven is corrupt. Has been for a long, long time." She looks over at Jo, and they make eye contact for the first time since Anna appeared in the truck. Her gaze is just as intent as ever, eyes fiercely bright in the gloom, and it brings heat to Jo's cheeks. "I don't believe they will stop Lilith, not alone. That's why I decided to act myself, and to ask for your help."

Yep, she's definitely blushing now, damn it. Jo grips the steering wheel a little tighter, concentrates on the road, tries to keep her focus. "But the, uh, the Garrison? They want to stop you?"

"If they can find me, they'll take me back to Heaven." Anna pauses for a moment, then says, quite matter-of-factly, "And then execute me, I suppose. Or maybe give me to Zachariah, let him _educate_ me."

Well, whatever that means, it sure doesn't sound like fun. "So, what now? I'm assuming you're not gonna just hide, so we should–"

Anna cuts over her. " _We_ are not doing anything. You will go to Santa Fe, I'll ward you so angels cannot find you, and then I'll leave. Go back to protecting the seals. Alone."

All of a sudden, Jo is furious. Maybe it's illogical – Anna's plan is sensible, it's practical, it keeps Jo's life angel-free and relatively sane – but she's a Harvelle. A _hunter_. She's been face to face with the world's dark underbelly since she was in elementary school, and she's got a calling, and there's nothing and no-one in this world that gets to tell her otherwise. Not Dean Winchester, not her own mother, and certainly not some redheaded waif of a fallen angel.

Before she knows what she's doing, she's spinning the steering wheel, white-knuckled, pulling over hard and fast enough that Anna throws out a hand to steady herself. "Jo, what –"

" _Just who the fuck do you think you are?"_ Jo yells. She’s trembling, heart pounding in her chest, riding some adrenalised wave of rage that seems to have come out of nowhere, taking her over. “You don’t get to just waltz into my life - into my _dreams_ , goddammit - and start giving me orders. You don’t get to tell me demons are trying to start the fucking Apocalypse and drag me into your little angelic family drama and then pat me on the head and tell me to just go back to my life and pretend nothing ever happened!”

Anna says coolly, “My intention is to keep you safe.”

And fuck, but that cold, calm detachment - it just about makes Jo see red. If there's one thing she's never been able to stand, it's being treated like a goddamn child.

"You know what, you self-righteous jerk? That's not your call to make. It's not up to _you_ to decide what is and isn't safe for _me._ And maybe you should have fucking well thought about that before you got me into this whole mess, huh? Maybe you should have given me all the fucking facts upfront instead of lying to me, because, hey, newsflash, I worked with you and then your brother nearly _killed_ me!"

The blood is visibly draining from Anna's face, and hey, whaddaya know, maybe she's finally gotten through to the real Anna. Whoever the hell that is. If there's even anything real there to be found at all, hiding under the layers of masks and manipulations.

"You said you wanted to be human, right? Well, you oughta try treating me like a goddamn human being, Anna."

When Jo finishes, she's out of breath. She's still trembling, taut with anger, knuckles tight on the steering wheel, ready to go a few rounds. When she was still living at the Roadhouse, Harvelle family rows were known to go on til dawn. If Anna wants to bring it? Jo can keep this up all goddamn night. _Will,_ if that's what it takes to get some sense into her.

There's a pause, Jo's pulse beating at her temples, raring to go – and Anna says nothing. Just stares out at the road, eyes saucer-huge in her ashen face.

_Oh shit._ There's something wrong here, and she doesn't know – can't tell – if it's just Anna freaking out or something more, some fresh life-or-death crisis ready to break over their heads. "Anna –"

And Anna breaks into motion, yanking the passenger side door open, hurling herself out of it, fast and abrupt as a hunted animal breaking for cover. She starts to run, manages to get about two, three paces away from the truck before collapsing.

Without thought, without hesitation, Jo unbuckles her seatbelt and jumps out of the truck, runs around to Anna. The angel is sprawled on her hands and knees, a tangle of long limbs and long hair, and she's throwing up.

And yeah, Jo's seen Anna kill a white-eyed demon, kill two angels, disappear into and appear out of thin air, walk right into her dreams, and yeah, she's mad as fuck at her. But right now, God, there in the roadside dust and dirt, shaking and sobbing as she retches, she looks so damn _vulnerable._ It's pure instinct to crouch beside her, gather that fall of auburn hair, hold it back at the nape of her neck, stroke her back gently in soothing circles.

When Anna's vomited up everything in her stomach, she pushes herself back up onto her feet. Jo stands as well, holding out her hands in case Anna's knees give out again – long Roadhouse experience has taught her how to tell when folks are about to hit the deck, and Anna's looking mighty unsteady. It's a relief that she just staggers back a few paces to lean against the truck, then slides down to sit with her back against the tyre, head hanging between her drawn-up knees. Her breathing's ragged. Jo thinks she might be crying.

For what seems like forever, she stands there, mute and baffled in the night. Every now and then a car roars past them, headlights blinding for a second, then plunging them back into darkness. It feels profoundly lonely – the road at night always has, to Jo. Like they might be the only people in the universe.

Then, finally, Anna lifts her head. Her face is puffy with tears, eyes reddened, strands of hair stuck to her cheeks, and she's never looked more human. Then she smiles, and it's shaky, looks like it costs her dear, but it's that wise ageless smile. Anael's smile, perhaps.

"You're right, Jo," she says.

"I'm – what?" Jo says, blankly. Of all the things she wasn't expecting –

"You're right, the way I've been treating you, it's – it's not. Not." She pauses, squeezes her eyes shut, takes a deep breath, fingers coiling tight in her own hair. "Not human. Not like a human. I tore out my – I wanted to be human so bad, Jo, I wanted to stop being an angel, because all we've ever done is watch and judge and _use_ people. And I didn't want to _be_ that anymore and – "

Anna's shoulders are shaking now, she's pulling fiercely at her hair, and, fuck, Jo doesn't know what to do. She's never been great with all this emotional stuff, and right now there's some instinct coiling in her stomach, telling her that there's a hell of a breakdown on the way. Bearing down on them like those headlights racing down the highway. "Anna – calm down, okay?"

It's a feeble effort and she knows it. Isn't surprised when Anna carries on regardless.

"I had to take my Grace back, I _had_ to, or we'd all have died. But I – I didn't want to be this again, to be an angel, Anael, to be like that again. I tore my Grace out so I wouldn't – and – oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, I didn't want to _BE_ this!" Her voice rises, breaks into a scream, hysterical and wild, pushes further, into something that's blazing white and straining at Jo's ears and pressing at her mind. It's an angel voice, the strength of it an unbearable, beautiful weight, and she is at once desperate for it to stop and wishing for it never to end.

The unearthly scream falls away abruptly, leaving Jo dizzy, after-images dancing over her vision. She gropes for the side of the truck, sits down heavily beside Anna. Their arms press together, both of them breathing hard.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to use my voice like that, it just ... Are you okay?" Anna sounds a little croaky, and it's impossible to tell if she's just tear-hoarse, or if it's some side effect of tapping in on the angel powers like that. God, life is surreal right now.

"Yeah, yeah, I think so." There's an echo ringing in Jo's ears, but she had worse after that run-in with a banshee over in Vermont. Hell, she had worse tinnitus after her first Foo Fighters concert.

Anna looks over at her, gives her the faintest, most hesitant of smiles. "I'm glad."

Another car rolls past, and for a moment the glare of the headlights casts her in silhouette, a halo. Jo shivers, suddenly cold, tugs her jacket tighter around her.

"And I'm sorry about treating you like that, too. I really am."

Jo swallows, shrugs. She's not used to fights going like this. Her and her mom, their style is more short bursts of knock-down, drag-out, followed by a lot of simmering and stewing and the both of them being too stubborn to own up to being wrong. Too busy brooding and building up defensive walls to apologise, and now she doesn't know how the fuck you go about negotiating a ceasefire.

"Well, uh. Y'know. I wanna work with you on this thing, but we've gotta be _partners_ , you know?"

"I know." Anna ducks her head, peeks at her out from under the fall of red hair, fragile smile still playing at her lips. "I'm glad. I think – I think I'd like that."

And, God, she's exhausted. This day has been such a fucking bust, such a roller coaster, even for a hunter, and there's so much of her that just wants to sleep, so done with everything, but there's just something about the way that angel _looks_ at her. It makes her stomach flip over, raises heat in her cheeks, brings out an answering smile before she even realises she's doing it. Damn it. _Really not the time, girl._

She ducks her head, studies her nails. It's a little too much right now, everything tangled together, a mess of frustration and fear and wanting in her chest. Too hard to focus when Anna's looking at her like that. And there's still stuff they've gotta have out, because she's sure as hell not getting back in a car with an angel who's maybe about to have some kind of nervous breakdown and blow out all the windows in the process. That's the last thing she needs at this point.

"Look – Anna, are you okay? I mean, just now, you seemed pretty messed up and all." Somehow she's always way more awkward asking things like this when she's being herself, _Jo,_ not hiding behind whatever alias she dreamt up this time for the case. "About the whole angel stuff, you know."

"I didn't mean to freak like that, I'm sorry," Anna says. She takes in a deep breath, and Jo can feel the tension in her where they're leaning on one another, faint tremors running through her. "It’s just, the last few months – I thought I was going mad, and then I remembered everything, and I lost my parents – and it's just –"

Her voice hitches, and Jo's heart constricts, because she sounds so _young_ , young and lost and full of pain. Human pain, orphan pain, and Jo knows that pain, has lived with it as her constant companion for more than a decade, and even now she has nights when it feels too deep to bear. The grief that never dies, and with it the knowledge that the world is not, never has been, what you thought it was.

"I know." She finds Anna's hand in the darkness, cold and bird-thin, interlinks their fingers. "When my daddy died, and I realised all the things he hunted, how dangerous they were, how _real_ they were … it's not like what happened to you, but yeah. It hurt so goddamn much. Still does."

Beside her Anna lets out a sob, clutches tight at her hand. There's the roar and flash of another car passing them, and in its wake the dark and the silence and the stillness seem that much more profound. Nothing but them, Jo's wretched old truck, the empty road, the wide sky and the stars. It emboldens Jo, and she finds herself saying things she's never, ever admitted before, not even to her beloved, battered journal.

"It's like, my dad getting killed, and hunting, they're so tied up in one another for me. And I love it, I _love_ hunting, hell, I chose it, but – but sometimes it's like – I wish I never knew about it. Wish my folks could just've run a normal bar, and I wouldn't have to worry 'bout salt and silver and do I know the right exorcism, and is this the freaking End Times we're in, you know? It's just. Sometimes, it's too much. Someone's gotta do it, but why'd it have to be us?" She clears her throat, rubs fiercely at her eyes. "What I _mean_ is, I think I understand where you're coming from, some."

Anna's gripping her hand like she's drowning and it's a lifeline. "Oh, Father, let this cup pass from me," she breathes, and then her face is pressed into the crook of Jo's neck and they're both crying.

It doesn't take long for Jo to cry herself out – never was very teary, not even as a kid – and then she just holds Anna. One arm around her shoulders, cheek resting on the crown of her head. She doesn't say anything, can't think of anything that wouldn't be asinine, and besides, there's some kinds of sadness you just need to let be.

And so she just sits. Breathes in the crisp cold night air, the fresh-rain smell of Anna, and lets the tears fall.

Eventually, they stop. Anna's breathing settles, quiets. She lets Jo tug her to her feet, gets into the passenger side of the truck. When Jo turns on the lights to check the map, she sees her face is blotchy, puffy and her eyes are reddened. And yeah, there's still that strange, too-fierce intensity to her gaze, and the image of her dripping power is still etched in Jo's mind ( _she's not fucking stupid_ ) but right now? Heaven and humanity aside, they're just Anna and Jo. Two people caught up in a war they never asked for.

Two people who, at least, have one another.

"Shall I map-read?" Anna offers. "I went to Santa Fe on a road trip, back in college."

Jo considers for a moment calling her on it, asking, _does this mean we're partners, then? Does this mean you've decided to stop calling all the shots and let me help you?_ But no, it's a long drive, and they're both worn out, and she knows an olive branch when she sees one.

"Roger that, co-pilot," she says, pulling back out onto the highway, and when she winks, Anna grins.

* * *

When Jo stops the truck in the parking lot of a Santa Fe motel, the Eastern sky is getting light. She's worn out, ready to crash – but she's been a lot worse before now. Hunting is pretty much a crash course in coping with whacked-out sleeping patterns, after all, and besides, this is more the emotional kind of exhaustion than the physical.

She's ready to hit the sack, forget about everything for a good eight, nine hours. No more near-death experiences or metaphysical revelations or angels appearing out of nowhere to shake up her life. Sounds like paradise, right about now.

As she steps out of the truck, hefting the rucksack that holds her laptop and wallet and toothbrush, not to mention her never-leave-home-without-em favourite weapons, heads over to the motel reception, Anna follows. Just a pace behind her, quieter even than she's been the last three hours of night-driving, a faithful shadow.

The thin, grey-faced man at reception doesn't look up from his computer once while Jo's checking in. Then he asks for payment, and for a moment Jo hesitates – she's got cards in a couple different names ready, but suddenly she can't remember _where_. Packed on autopilot and now she doesn't know where she stashed the extra cards, serves her damn right, rookie mistake, that –

That's the moment Anna picks to step up to lean on the counter next to Jo. She clears her throat loudly, and the grey-faced man looks up at her for a bare second – and all of a sudden his face goes blank. Just freezes, as if in shock, only long enough for Jo to register it and think, _what the fuck_? Then he's back to normal, nodding and mumbling, "Yes, that's fine, thank you," and handing her a key on a chipped plastic keyring.

_What the actual fuck_? The hairs on the back of Jo's neck are prickling, and it's only the cool firm hand at her elbow that gets her moving, heading mechanically out to find room number 46 like everything's completely normal, nothing to see here, no sir, move along.

The room's actually a lot less scuzzy than she was expecting – only a couple of stains on the ceiling, and the kitchenette looks borderline useable, thank the Lord for small mercies. She dumps her bag on the floor, makes it over to the bed, collapses down on the plasticky coverlet. God, it's tempting to just fall asleep right here, fuck everything else.

"That was practically _stealing_ ," she says, more baffled than accusing.

Anna's making a circuit of the room, drawing complex sigils at every window, every door, using a vial of some kind of oil she's produced from her jacket pocket. When she finishes each signal, she whispers something, and the air in the room tightens, shivers. Some kind of angel power, some magic alphabet Jo doesn't know. When her brain's more awake, she'll get Anna to explain. Could be handy against demons. "Hm? What?"

"That thing you did back there, the Jedi mind-trick routine."

"Oh." Anna pauses, turns to look over at her, doe-eyes huge and sincere. "I'll arrange to pay from my old bank account. You shouldn't have to – it's my fault you had to move in such a rush anyway. I didn't mean to offend you or anything, honestly."

"Ah, good to know." You can't hunt without occasionally straying onto the wrong side of the law, but she's been careful to keep those forays to the absolute minimum. Late-night grave-digging to take care of a vengeful spirit, sure, fake IDs and a spot of breaking and entering, necessary evil, credit-card fraud and outright thievery, not so much. Joanna Beth Harvelle's still got a clean criminal record, and after hearing a few of the Winchesters' stories, she'd like to keep it that way, thank you very much. Monsters are bad enough without having the cops on your ass as well. "Just didn't know you could do that. Mind control."

"It's not so much control as it is projecting an illusion, like dream-walking," Anna says absently, finishing the final sigil, then standing back with her arms crossed, surveying her handiwork. At a snap of her fingers, all of the oil lines flare with blue-white light for an instant, then fade, leaving behind no visible marks whatsoever.

"Neat trick you've got there," Jo says, eyebrows raised, and whistles.

"Well, that should keep you hidden from demons, most angels, too. You're the expert on monsters, but it's a pretty strong warding, I'd be surprised if anything else can get past it." Jo sits up, holds out her hand for a high-five, and exhausted as she is, she can't help but shiver at the way Anna smiles, slow and shy. They slap palms, and then their fingers interlink again, and Jo's not sure, can't tell, who started that, her or Anna or both of them together, moving on shared instinct.

"You gonna flap off again?" Part of her wants to hear _no_ , part of her wants to hear _yes._ This damn angel, she makes everything complicated.

Anna holds her gaze, eyes steady and sad. "I have to go. It's not safe for me to stay here, not with Michael's best out looking for me – and besides, I have brothers and sisters I need to meet with."

"They're with you? On your side?"

"They're struggling, doubting. Some of them might join me, perhaps."

Jo squeezes Anna's hand, smiles as gently as she can. This is the one thing that unites both aspects of Anna she's seen – the fragile young girl, and the terrifying ageless creature – always so profoundly lonely. The idea of her being cut off from every member of her angelic family, after the loss of her human family, well, it hurts to think of. "I hope they do."

"Thank you." For a moment, Anna touches Jo's cheek, a barely-there brush of her fingertips. She hesitates, then says, "I should ward you, as well."

Jo's not sure what she was expecting, but it wasn't that, and her brain, still stuck on a loop and stuttering over Anna's touch, the softness of it, won't process properly. "Sorry, what?"

"Ward you. So the Garrison can't hunt you down again like they did today. There's a couple of options –"

Jo breaks in, "But how would _you_ find me?" She raises her eyebrows, sets her jaw, does her level best to project _this is not up for discussion_ the way her mom always can. So no one would even think to argue the toss with her.

For a moment, Anna considers, head tilted slightly, while Jo grits her teeth for another confrontation. Then Anna reaches into the pocket of her jeans and produces – of all the things – a mobile phone. She presses a few buttons, hands it over. Open on the screen is a new contact labelled JO, and holy shit, an angel just asked for her number. An _angel_. A _fallen_ angel. A motherfucking fallen angel just asked for her number.

By the time she's sent herself a text and handed back Anna's phone, she's grinning like an idiot. "So, that's sorted, what was that about warding me?"

"There's a couple of options." Anna's hands are cradling her own elbows, almost hugging herself, like she's suddenly shy. "I'd need to use Old Enochian sigils, have them attached to you –"

"Like on some kind of amulet?" Jo suggests. She's been wearing an anti-possession charm, engraved into the underside of her watch, since she was eighteen and the demon omens started spiking. Adding an anti-angel one to her repertoire shouldn't be much of a hassle.

Anna grimaces. "Not enough. Enochian has to be linked to you physically, has to be _part_ of you, for the enchantment to take. So, er – the most fool-proof solution is probably to engrave it onto your bones. The ribs, or the pelvis might work."

"Yeah, what's the _next_ most fool-proof solution?" Jo asks, because, god _damn_. A tattoo, she could handle – needles make her skin crawl, but she could power through it, and hey, then she might work up the guts to get a proper tattoo, a cute one. But, uh, something carved into her _ribs_? Not so much.

And thank the Lord for small mercies, Anna holds up that little vial of oil again. "Holy oil. I use this to draw the sigils on your skin, your back, maybe. I've got enough power to make it stain, like a brand, and it would be removable, too. That means it's a bit less secure, obviously, but it's also a bit less radical."

"Just a bit, yeah." For a moment Jo hesitates, chewing at her lip, hard-earned hunter paranoia warring with the desire to, y'know, _not have a freaking set of Enochian sigils permanently etched into her skeleton_. "Do you think it's really likely that your – well, the other angels – are gonna try and hunt me down again? To get to you?"

"I – I'm not sure." Anna's mouth twists, and she looks away. "When I commanded the Garrison, I wouldn't, but Zachariah – I don't know. But like I said, there's a few of my brothers and sisters I'm in touch with, and if they tell me anything, I'll tell you." Now she's gazing at Jo again, hazel eyes hawk-fierce and sincere, takes her hands, squeezes them gently. "I promise, if I hear _anything_ that makes me think you're in danger, I'll tell you, Jo."

"And we'll work something out together?" She intended it to be a statement, but her voice betrays her, and it comes out questioning. Quavering. Because she's coping, she's dealing, but after the light show she got back in Denver a few hours ago, she's in way, way over her head, and she knows it.

Anna just nods, thumbs stroking over the backs of Jo's hands. "We'll work something out together."

"Okay. Okay. Then let's do the holy oil thing."

She sits down on the bed, cross-legged, her back facing Anna. Shrugs out of her battered biker jacket, strips off her t-shirt, unclasps her bra. She's never been self-conscious about her body – knows she's maybe not a beauty, but cute enough, but it's more than that.

When she was a kid she was always into sport, running, baseball, bit of gymnastics, bit of karate, and now she's a hunter, and she's always _trusted_ her body. Known it'd do what she asked it, see her through whatever track meet or scrap with a poltergeist she was in the middle of. And sex? Well, that's just a fun time all over, nothing to get all shrinking violet about.

So yeah – it's no big deal. Same as that time she went along with Walt and Roy to help them with a couple revenants, and ended up having to stitch up Roy's leg. Just one of those things.

Then Anna's hands are at the nape of her neck, gently lifting her hair, so it falls over her shoulders. Just that barely-there touch, and then – then Anna exhales, and Jo can feel it, warm against her shoulder blade, and suddenly her skin comes alive, and she's so, _so_ aware of that other body behind her, so very close.

The first stroke of the holy oil makes her jump a little. It's not cold, as she'd expected, but hot, almost uncomfortably so, and makes her skin prickle, like a more intense version of those medicated muscle rubs. It smells strange – some heavy, rich spice, and under that, musty. Like old books.

"Are you okay? It's not painful?" Anna's hand curled around her shoulder, voice low at her ear.

"No, no, I'm fine, you just got me by surprise. Go ahead."

A brief pause, then there's that sensation again, warmth running over her shoulder blades, across the knots of her spine. Now she's used to it, expecting it, the smooth gentle brush of Anna's fingers, the sound of her breathing, the heat and the tingle, it feels good. Sensual. Jo closes her eyes, loses herself in it, Anna's hands on her bare skin. Finds herself wishing it could go on forever.

Then Anna says something, a quick run of syllables Jo doesn't recognise. For a moment, the oil marks flare red-hot, and she gasps, shoulders jerking – then it's gone. Over.

Her skin's all the normal temperature again, and she's pretty sure that the way it's tingling is, well, not the holy oil. Just Anna.

"All done." There's a hand resting lightly at each of her shoulders. Anna's close enough that when she speaks it ruffles Jo's hair.

"I – thanks." Her cheeks are burning, and she's hyper-aware of the fact she's half-naked, cool air against her stomach, her breasts, her back.

"I should go," Anna says, slowly, reluctantly. "You need to sleep, and I – my siblings, I –"

"I know. It's okay." There's nothing Jo wants more than to grab her by the shoulders, make her stay, but she can't. She _does_ need to sleep, and Anna needs to go do her rebel angel thing, and she also needs to get her head sorted, and for that she needs to be alone. She just – she just _wants_.

This time it's Anna who says, "You'll be in touch, won't you? Jo?"

She smiles, twists her neck so she can look up at the angel standing behind her, so close the fall of auburn hair brushes her cheek. "Don't you worry, I've got your number."

They both grin, and Anna leans in, lips still parted, and Jo can't take her eyes off them, pulse fluttering in her throat, and then they're kissing.

It's quick and quiet and chaste, just silk-soft lips and the pounding in her ears. It's not earth-shattering, it's not life-changing, nothing her melodramatic fifteen-year-old self imagined a kiss to be, but it's real. It's real and it's happening and, fuck, she almost can't believe it.

When they draw apart, Anna's redhead-pale cheeks are flushed, and Jo's pretty sure she's scarlet and staring like an idiot. For a long moment, they just look at each other, silent. Maybe Jo should say something, but she doesn't feel like she needs to. There's nothing more she could say that the way she's watching Anna, heart in her mouth, isn't saying already.

After a pause, Anna straightens up, steps back. She nods to Jo, smiles again, soft and secret, and then, in a whip-tear of wing-beats, she's gone. Leaving Jo to a motel room that smells of heavy spices, and old books, and fresh-fallen rain.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jo settles into New Mexico, and has an encounter with a coven of witches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well ... I'm back. I said I knew where this fic was going and that it wasn't abandoned, and it's true.  
> It's been way too long - I got caught up in other writing projects - and I wouldn't blame anyone for giving up on this fic, but I'm working on it again. And voila! New chapter.
> 
> Enjoy!  
> I [tumble](http://capricorn-child.tumblr.com), and love feedback.

It doesn't take Jo long to land herself a gig tending bar in Santa Fe. There's a guy she knows from the Roadhouse who lives in this town – not a hunter, but after Jo went down to clear the ghosts out of his diner last year, he's kept an eye out for folks in the life. Helps out where he can. Going to see him is a bit of a risk since she's trying to stay on the down-low, but Luca's good people. He can keep his mouth shut.

And he does. Luca comes through big-time. He sets her up with a job – a friend of a friend runs a bar, a little skeezier than the Black Cat was, but then that's more Jo's style anyways – and tips her off to the places in town she'll find flats for cheap.

Even with Luca's help, and staying in the motel for free courtesy of Anna, it's still not easy sorting herself out. She's never been to Santa Fe before, and even a short-term lease on a flat needs a deposit, which means pulling double-shifts at her new job. It's tough, but Jo almost welcomes it. Working her ass off in a bar is something that's familiar, and the mundane worries about rent and landlords and where to park her truck so it won't get broken into make a change from all the, like, _cosmic_ shit that's been going on lately.

She goes to work. Eats endless batches of chili she throws together in the crappy little kitchenette at the motel. Renews the wards on the room and her car every night before she goes to bed. Every spare waking second is spent online, keeping tabs on the witch coven that brought her here in the first place.

About a week after she arrived in Santa Fe, she gets a text from Anna. **How goes it in SF?**

 **Ok found place that does a+ noodles!!!** Jo replies, because it's true, and it's made her day. She's currently inhaling a takeout box full of the black bean sauce variety and making noises that probably sound kinda orgasmic, but who gives a fuck? Nothing better before an all-night shift than awesome food you didn't cook yourself.

It tales Anna less than a minute to text back. **Awesome. You'll have to show me :)**

Jo doesn't let herself second-guess it, just replies, **I finish work @ 8 on Mon,** stuffs her cell phone in her jeans pocket, and heads out to work. It's a busy night, the bar rocking and rolling like the Roadhouse celebrating a jackalope hunt, and she's run off her feet. First chance she gets to check her phone, it's already past midnight.

She has one new message.

**It's a date x**

Jo spends the rest of her shift walking on air.

* * *

At ten to eight Monday night, Anna appears in the bar. Jo never sees her arrive, walk in through the age-weathered door, make her way across the sticky floor to the vinyl barstools, although she must do. All Jo knows is, she turns around to hand an old-timer his tequila, and there she is. Perched on a stool. Chin propped up in the palm of one pale hand. Her hair a halo of fire in the low lights. When she catches Jo's eye, a smile breaks over her face, and she gives the most adorable little wave of her fingers.

Jo swallows, nervous and excited all at once. Sitting over there, where all Jo would have to do is saunter over a few paces and she'd be within touching distance, is an angel. An angel who is also a redheaded girl with hawklike eyes and the sweetest smile in the lower forty-eight.

Christ. This is going to kill Jo.

It feels like the longest ten minutes of her life, measuring out shots, cracking open bottles of beer, wiping down the counter, all with Anna's warm gaze on her. She can practically feel her skin tingling with it.

When Jo's shift finally – _finally_ – finishes, and she slips through the hinged countertop, Anna is right there. Smiling wide and teeth gleaming, dimples in her cheeks.

"Hey, you," Jo says, and then they're hugging. Anna's long slim arms wrapped tight around her middle, their foreheads pressed together.

"It's so good to see you," Anna says, nothing but sincerity in her voice.

"Back atcha." The smell of fresh rain is delicious in Jo's nostrils. "Ready for some noodles? 'Cause I am _starving_."

"Yeah, let's go," Anna says, but she doesn't let go. Just tilts her head and kisses Jo on the lips. At first it's soft, gentle, but then she goes to pull away and Jo thinks _no, not yet_. She goes up on her tiptoes and pulls Anna down by the collar to kiss her deep and hard. Anna makes this little noise, somewhere between a gasp and a moan, and suddenly Jo's dizzy. Dizzy with how much she _wants_ this.

When she breaks the kiss, Anna raises a delicate eyebrow at her. "So much for wanting to go get noodles," she says, and they both giggle, Jo feeling herself blush.

"So sue me, I liked kissing you," she says, and then it's Anna's turn to go red. "Okay, let's go. For real this time."

The briefest of forehead touches, and they're off. Anna's arm is still curled around Jo's waist, the cool tips of her fingers brushing skin where her t-shirt rides up, and Jo slings her arm over Anna's shoulders, plays idly with her hair as they walk. It's easy, frighteningly easy to relax into this, forget angels and demons and witches and just enjoy herself. Enjoy walking through the cool New Mexico night, a beautiful girl tucked warm against her side.

The owner of the noodle bar knows Jo by now, greets the two of them with a knowing smile, and lets them have Jo's favourite seats – the ones that overlook the road, so you can watch the cars and people blur by. Anna falls on the food with an enthusiasm that would do a starving hunter proud. At first it's funny, and then Jo starts blushing at the noises Anna keeps making – both embarrassing and embarrassingly _hot_.

Then Anna catches her eye and starts giggling, and Jo realises she's been doing it on purpose. She takes the only possible course of action and tries to tip Anna out of her chair. Anna clings onto her arms, yelling and cackling with laughter, her eyes crinkling up and her smile breaking wide across her face.

The last time Jo saw her, Anna had all that ancient power drawn tight around her, weighing her down. But now – now she looks like a girl like any other, carefree and young and joyful, and it makes Jo's heart sing.

* * *

When they're done eating, and they've had two refills of green tea each, and they can't put off leaving any longer, they walk out into the calm night. Hand-in-hand this time.

Outside Jo's motel there's a kid's playground. This late, it's deserted, and the two of them sit on the adobe wall that surrounds. Their arms pressed together, linked hands resting on Anna's jean-clad knee. Anna leans her head on Jo's shoulder, makes this soft little noise of satisfaction when Jo pets her hair with her free hand.

For a long time they say nothing. There doesn't seem to Jo to be any need to talk. The sky is huge and dark and star-filled above them, silence surrounding them like an embrace. It's beautiful. This moment is beautiful.

It's been such a very long time since Jo felt as safe, as at peace, as she does now.

Eventually, Anna says, "How are things going?"

"Kinda crazy busy, but I like it that way. And no angel trouble. Demons either. Sure makes a change."

"I'm glad." She feels Anna smile against her shoulder. The invisible ward on her back gives an answering pulse of warmth that makes her catch her breath for an instant.

"Yeah, me too." Jo runs her fingers through Anna's hair, massages gently at her scalp. "And what about you, babe?" The endearment rolls off her tongue, mindless.

A gentle sigh. Anna shifts against her. "Well … there's one of my brothers I've been seeing, one of my closest brothers, and I think he might join me. He's a bit of a troubled soul, and he's starting to have doubts, and – yeah. He hasn't turned me in to the Garrison. He might help."

Jo squeezes her hand. "That's great."

"It's a start. Things with Lilith – I won't lie, Jo, we're up against it. I mean, it's not just me, the Garrison are fighting her, there's a couple of other humans involved, hunters, and –"

"Who?" Jo interrupts, eager. Doing jobs on her own is fine, she's used to it, but having someone around to guard your back and crack jokes with? That's always more fun. "If they're American, I might know 'em. Hell, I reckon we must have had every hunter in the states through the Roadhouse at some point. We could tag team."

Anna hesitates. "I –"

"I promise I won't do anything reckless if you tell me," Jo adds, and holds out her hand. "Pinkie promise."

"Well, in _that_ case," Anna says, and sits up so she can link pinkies and smile at Jo. "It's Sam and Dean Winchester. But they're working with the Garrison, they're under very close watch. I can't tell you what to do, but –"

"Yeah, I can do without getting the shakedown from your family again," Jo says dryly. "I'm leaving that well alone."

Anna smiles, small and sad. She touches Jo's cheek briefly, the cold pads of her fingertips ghosting over her skin. "I'm sorry I put you in danger, Jo. I just, I regret –"

"Don't say that." Jo wraps her fingers around Anna's bird-thin wrist, keeps her from moving away. "I told you, I want in on this. And if you hadn't, well – I mean, Chamuel and Jeremiah scared the shit out of me, but I'd do it all over. I'm not sorry I met you."

The kiss Anna presses to her lips tastes fresh and pure, like water pouring icy cold from the spring. It takes Jo's breath away, and when they break apart, foreheads pressed together, she's trembling.

"I'm not sorry either," Anna admits, barely above a whisper. "Not in my heart."

"Good."

They settle back down into a comfortable half-embrace: Anna's head on Jo's shoulder again, Jo's arm slung around Anna's shoulders. She drums her heels against the adobe wall, gazes up at the pinprick stars.

"Anna – a minute ago you said _Dean_ Winchester is helping the Garrison. But he died last May. Hellhounds. Everyone knows that." Just like everybody knows that's why Sam lost his shit and dropped off the map. It's still hard for Jo to get her head around. Dean had always seemed somehow far more _alive_ than anyone else. She hadn't believed the news till she heard it from Bobby Singer himself, drunk off his ass with grief.

Then Anna interrupts her melancholy, saying, almost sheepishly, "One of my brothers in the Garrison brought him back."

"What? You're – seriously? _Fuck_." She shakes her head. "Those two. I swear, even for hunters, those two get caught up in the most ridiculous amount of shit."

"I sort of got that impression, yeah." The smile is audible in Anna's voice.

"I'm glad they're on side, though. They're good hunters." Even if Sam does give her the creeps after that demon-possession thing. Not his fault, but – yeah. Hard to forget that kind of thing. A shiver of memory goes running down Jo's spine, and she shrugs it off, focuses on the _now_. "But you were saying things are going badly? Is Lilith – is she winning?"

Anna sighs. "I don't know. I honestly don't know what _winning_ would look like right now, but – twenty-three of the Seals are broken."

" _Shit_." Jo swallows hard. Twenty-three out of sixty-six – that's – she can't do the math in her head, but it's not good. With the stakes as high as they are, those aren't odds she likes. "Is there – Anna. If there's a Seal or anything I can help with, you have to tell me. Okay? I wanna do my bit."

"I know." Anna sits up, gazes at her seriously. Her eyes gleam with the fire of the sodium streetlamps. She holds out her hand and it takes a moment for Jo to realise what she intends. "Pinkie promise."

They link pinkies again and shake, solemnly. For the first time, when Jo looks at Anna, she thinks she can see both sides of her at once. The ordinary girl who loves sushi and has a laugh that makes Jo's heart skip a beat, and the angel, magnificent and terrifying and lonely. And right now, beneath the stars in New Mexico, the combination doesn't seem strange.

Jo is sitting beside an excommunicated angel, discussing their plans to prevent the Apocalypse, after a dinner date – but she can handle that. She can deal. At times over the last couple weeks, it's felt like she was going insane, that after twenty-three years of hunting this was finally a bridge too far.

But it's not. Forget all that angels and demons shit, it doesn't matter. Because at the heart of it, they are just Anna and Jo, Jo and Anna, two people.

"I should go," Anna says, regretfully. She glances at Jo through red-brown eyelashes, shy again, when she asks, "Can we do this again sometime? I mean, it doesn't have to be _this_ , exactly, but –"

"Yeah, of course," Jo rescues her, grinning. Can't help reaching out to tweak Anna's nose. "You've got my number, don't you, angel?"

* * *

Jo clears the witches out of Santa Fe in the small hours of a Wednesday morning. The moon is dark, a blind eye among the stars, a favoured time for curses, necromancy, demon summonings. This coven have dipped their toes into all three, but their bread-and-butter is leech curses, so far as Jo can tell. Curses that focus on one individual, draining their life force slowly and subtly, to be used by the witches to drive spells granting them wealth, power, success …

Clever strategy. Hard to spot. But sooner or later, no matter how clever the witch, they fall into a pattern. Only a matter of time.

She finds them outside of the city, up in the mountains, this spot where the trees and rocks form a natural circle formation. A couple nights before Jo had scoped it out, noted the red drips of dried candle wax in the dirt, symbols scratched into rocks, the black scorch marks at the centre of the circle, the way her compass needle swung in erratic loops when she stepped into the ring. Noted too the paths leading up and down the mountain, where the cover is, the sightlines.

Witches are just people, which makes hunting them messy and painful in some ways, but easy in others. They don't have the killer instinct of demons, the heightened senses of skin-walkers. Just people.

And that's how Jo catches them by surprise. Just walks up from the east, hidden by rocks until she's right there, kicking over one of their candles and stepping through their circle.

Five kids her age. That's all they are. Five stupid, selfish, _stupid_ kids.

One of them, a tall girl with close-cropped dark hair, lunges at Jo almost immediately. "Who in the fuck are you? Get out of here!"

They're halfway up a mountain in the middle of a winter night, but the girl's barefoot, wearing nothing but tiny shorts and a thin t-shirt. Not shivering even a little. In the gloom her eyes glow ever-so-slightly gold. Looks like somebody's been working some real powerful hocus-pocus.

Jo stands her ground. Says, in her best let's-calm-this-the-fuck-down barmaid voice, "Sorry, hon, ain't gonna happen. I'm here to put a stop to what you're doing. The summonings, the cursing, all that? It's over."

If Jo needed confirmation that this girl is the ringleader, she gets it from the way the other four witches all shoot panicked looks her way. "I don't know what you're talking about, you're fucking crazy," the girl sneers. But she's shifting closer, her left hand held out to one side, fingers crooked into claws. Ready to ignite a spell at any moment.

"Yeah, you do." While she speaks, Jo reaches slowly around to the small of her back, the gun tucked in the waistband of her jeans. The absolute focus of hunting is upon her, keeping her calm and poised even as the adrenaline hums down her veins. "You thought – you all thought – you could do whatever you want. No witchcraft police, right? No-one's gonna notice what you're up to. No-one's gonna stop it. Even when you're _murdering_ people. Well, wrong. I'm gonna stop you."

"You're gonna try," the girl spits and makes a break for it, sprinting towards Jo. In the cradle of her crooked left hand fire erupts, a sick vivid yellow, blindingly bright, sparks leaping from her fingertips. Suddenly the air is sharp with static electricity, flying up Jo's spine, prickling at her skin –

The witch girl draws her hand back like a pitcher getting ready to strike a batter out –

In a single quicksilver movement Jo whips the gun out, brings it up, squeezes the trigger.

The gunshot echoes off the mountainside like a thunderclap. Someone screams, high and hysterical. Brought to a sudden halt, the girl teeters in place, still up on the balls of her feet, poised like a sprinter. Her right hand clamped to her midriff, pressed down over a spreading stain. The flames cradled in her palm flare and flicker, strobing wildly.

This time Jo can aim. Just like she used to with her Daddy's BB out back of the Roadhouse. The bullet goes home, right between the eyes. Bullseye.

The second, the _instant_ that high-calibre bullet tears through the witch's skull, her fire-spell goes nuclear. Before Jo throws up an arm up to shield her eyes from searing light, she catches a single glimpse of a girl – a skinny college girl like any you might pass on any street any day – engulfed in a torrent of acid-yellow flame.

Even with her eyes closed, she sees the blaze of light. Feels the heat licking over her skin. The roar of it beneath the screaming of the other witches, crackling, spitting, like the savage laughter of some uncontrollable beast.

It lasts only a moment before it extinguishes, swallowing itself up as abruptly and totally as it had erupted. But for that briefest moment, Jo thinks she has looked into Hell itself.

The Hell that waits for them all if Anna fails.

* * *

When the flames have died there is nothing left of the chief witch. Nothing but a dead-black scorch mark in the dusty ground, faintly smoking.

The four surviving members of the coven are all a fucking mess. Two girls clinging to each other, one hiding her face in the curve of the other's shoulder. One boy doubled over, hands braced on his knees, head hanging limp from his shoulders, a puddle of vomit beneath him. The other boy is curled up on the floor, pressed into the dirt, shoulders hitching with sobs.

There's a flicker of pity in Jo's stomach, yeah, a flicker. They saw their friend get shot and immolated by her own ill-gotten power, right before their eyes. No wonder they're crying, grieving, coming to pieces.

Not that they bothered to cry over the people their curses killed.

A list of names in Jo's hunting journal remind her these are no innocents, no bystanders, no victims. _Elisa Serrano. Michael Freamon. Roman Meyer. Tanisha Green. Juan Carrillo. India StJohn._

Jo flicks the safety back on her pistol. She doesn't put it away, but as she walks forward she keeps in at her side, pointed down at the ground, finger off the trigger.

She stands in the centre of the circle, a little to one side of the smear of foul-smelling ash. Tosses her hair back. Clears her throat.

"Let's talk."

* * *

 

The sky is growing light as Jo pulls up outside her new apartment building. Her skin is red-brown with dust, the taste of ash sour in her nostrils, behind her teeth. It feels like there is grit beneath her eyelids, like there are weights bearing down on her shoulders, like she gained twenty years overnight.

Yeah, this is technically a win. It took a couple of hours, and one hell of a lot of biting her tongue to stay calm in the face of hysterical screaming and distraught sobbing, but she hammered out an agreement with four witches. An agreement she actually thinks they'll stick to, after the after-school _this is your brain on drugs_ special they got earlier.

Still. Jo killed someone tonight.

The first time she had to drop a body, the morning after she drank herself unconscious, Bobby Singer told her it'd get easier.

She hopes it never does. Never stops feeling like failure when she has to kill – not monsters, not ghosts who should have passed on years ago, but _people_.

The fluorescent lights in the hallway are harsh, stabbing at her eyes as she makes her way down the corridor to her apartment. Shuffling, really, feet dragging. Fitting her key to the lock is more of a struggle than it ought to be. Christ, it's been a long night.

But her door swings open, finally, and she stumbles into the dark and quiet. Puts the chain on, dumps her backpack on the floor, and sits down beside it to unlace her boots. She should shower, wash the mountain dust and the guilt from her skin, but all she wants to do is crawl into bed and let sleep take her.

Obscurely, she wants her mother. Wants to be held, her hair to be stroked, to be told everything will be okay. But Ellen's on the other side of the country and Jo has always sucked at asking for comfort anyway. She just – wants someone who knows, who'll _understand_ –

Hoarse, half-asleep sitting on the floor, she says out loud, "God, Anna, wish you were here."

A moment later, and soft, like a dream, she hears the beat of wings. Smells the air go fresh and cool. Fingertips brush, gentle, down her cheek, over her shoulder.

Jo doesn't startle. This time, Anna turning up, stepping out of nothingness, it feels right. It _fits_ , like the next line of a song she knows but can't quite remember. Eyes closed, she turns her face toward Anna. Presses her cheek against legs clad in soft denim.

"I'm here, I'm here." Anna rests her palm on the crown of Jo's head briefly, then pats her shoulder. "Come on, let's get you into bed."

Taking Jo's hands, she pulls her to her feet, rests their foreheads together. Jo clutches at Anna, holds her tight, breathes in the smell of her. Allows herself to be led hand-in-hand across the apartment to her tiny bedroom.

While Jo shucks off her jeans and t-shirt, Anna fetches a wash cloth and a towel from the bathroom. With calm, matter-of-fact gentleness she starts to wipe the worst of the red dirt from Jo's skin. At the first touch of her hands on Jo's bare shoulder, the ward etched invisibly into her back comes to life with a deep warmth that seems to reach into the very marrow of Jo's bones.

It's been so long since Jo felt this safe. So very long.

"It's okay, it's okay, honey," Anna murmurs, and Jo realises that she's crying silently. She never cries after hunts. Never.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she says, and then realises that at this point it's pretty fucking pointless to lie about it. "It's just – the job – one of the witches – I mean, she was gonna zap me – but I shot her, and she was only – fuck."

The soft pads of Anna's thumbs brush over her cheekbones. "It's not your fault, Jo. It's not."

Jo can't speak. Just. Has no words. All she can do is wrap her arms around Anna, hug her as tight as she can. And Anna holds on to her, just as tight. Like this is all that's keeping the two of them here, the two of them sane, in this crazy, crazy fucking world.


End file.
